You Can't Take the Sky From Me
by cupid-painted-blind
Summary: The Gaang find themselves in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar technology, and must rely on the only kindness they can find. Unfortunately, kindness seems to be an endangered species in this 'Verse. x-over with Firefly/Serenity.
1. 101: serenity

take my love, take my land, take me where i cannot stand  
i don't care, i'm still free,  
_you can't take the sky from me._

episode one:  
**strangers in a strange land**

chapter one:  
(_serenity)_

"Hi!" she said, beaming as well as she could. The slightly sweaty man simply looked at her, so she barreled on. "I'm Katara. My friends and I... Well, we're kind of lost. Could you tell me where I am... and... how to... Or you could just walk away," she grumbled, watching the creep's retreating form. It was just as well - he seemed the sort to demand payment for any information, and she was not prepared to pay anything to anyone in this place.

It claimed to be docks, but she saw neither harbor nor ship, just a bunch of giant metal hulls gleaming in the harsh sunlight. Mostly, it seemed like a giant excuse for people to gather - here was a man selling some kind of grilled _thing_, there was a woman in a too-short skirt hawking a ware Katara didn't want to think about.

She didn't exactly understand what they were doing here, anyhow. She had been minding her own business, cleaning up the Eastern Air Temple, when things got hazy and strange, and Aang was there, and so was Toph and - Zuko, which had confused her. She vaguely remembered Sokka and Suki being involved for some reason, and then they were all sitting in a rocky desert, heads throbbing and minds swirling, and no clue how any of this fitted together or why they weren't at the Eastern Air Temple anymore.

Also, their bending was all messed up - Zuko's was overwhelmingly weak, hers overwhelmingly strong, and Aang had found he could only bend air for some reason. Toph's didn't seem overly affected, but she did seem to be having more trouble than usual. It was all frightening, worrying, and incredibly confusing at once.

"Hi," she said, trying again with a vendor in a lurid yukata. "My name's Katara. I was - "

"D'you wanna buy somethin' or sell me your life story, kid?" the vendor replied coldly. She opened and closed her mouth several times.

"I'm not looking to buy anything, I was just wondering - "

"I don' sell information. Get outta the way, you're holdin' up traffic."

She glared and shuffled off to find someone else to interrogate about their whereabouts. The others were around, doing the same thing, but she had a sneaking suspicion that they weren't having any more luck than she was. Frustration, exhaustion, and thirst were all begging for attention, and she still hadn't found out even where they were.

"Hi," she said firmly, to another, slightly kinder-looking vendor. "I was wondering if you could tell me - "

The woman glared at her so fiercely that she thought her eyebrows might catch on fire. "Shoo!" the woman croaked, and batted a hand at her like she was a stray cat. Katara almost snapped right there and froze the lady's head off, but they had all discussed this before entering the docks, and had decided to keep bending displays to a minimum, until they knew more.

It was terribly, terribly tempting, though.

"You need help?" a sweet voice said from behind her. Katara turned to see a pretty, dark-haired woman with thick coveralls and a smudge of something on her face, carrying a box of strange metal parts.

"Yes," she cried, "I'm - I don't know where I am!"

The woman nodded. "Yeah, Persephone is pretty easy to get lost in. Come on, I'll get you a map." She nodded gratefully and decided not to ask what Persephone was, preferring to simply follow for now and work out the details later. The woman led her over to one of the giant metal monstrosities, which was gaping open, and where a little folding chair with an umbrella was set up. She set the box down and rubbed her hands on her coveralls. "I'm Kaylee, by the way. And this here's _Serenity_."

Katara looked up at the thing, and wondered what, precisely, that meant. "I'm Katara. I - My friends and my brother are here with me. We split up to find information."

Kaylee smiled. "Well, I can get ya the information you're looking for. Where're ya trying to get to?"

"Um... Home?" she answered, a little desperately. "I don't really know. I'm kind of... well, completely lost. I don't even know what this place is."

Kaylee gave her a slightly worried look. "Are you okay?"

"Sort of?" she replied, rubbing the back of her head. "I mean, I'm not hurt, I just... don't know where I am."

"Amnesia?" Kaylee asked, but went on before Katara could answer. "I'll talk to our doctor about it. He might be able to help you, but, um. Well." She didn't appear eager to explain the caveat to that, and just shrugged. "Anyway, you're on Persephone, at the Eavesdown Docks. If someone wanted to get rid of you, they picked a good place. Here, lemme get that map." She then rushed into _Serenity_ and disappeared into the darkness. Katara peered in after her - the room inside was expansive, and all metal.

Before Kaylee had a chance to return, Zuko and Sokka found her. "Please tell me you had some luck," Sokka said, in the voice of one who has lost all hope of retaining his sanity.

"Sort of. I found this girl, Kaylee, and she said she might be able to help. She's getting us a map, at least."

"That's, like, twenty times the luck we've had."

"What is all of this stuff?" Zuko muttered, looking at the box Kaylee had been carrying with confusion. "It looks sort of like some of the things we have in the Fire Navy... But I've never seen this kind of - "

"You like mechanics?" Kaylee asked, sweeping back onto the ramp, startling Zuko. He began to apologize, but she just beamed. "I got all of these on discount, can you believe it?" she said, grinning like this was the best thing in the world. "She's gonna be runnin' like a charm." At this, Kaylee patted the metal wall fondly, as if it were a pet, and then plopped down into her chair, motioning for them to come closer. She laid out a few little blocks, which clicked together and lit up in a miniature image of the docks they were standing in. They all crowded around Kaylee, fascinated. "Okay, so you're here," she said, pointing to a spot near the edge, "right on the docks. There's a bunch of ships around that'll take passengers and get ya wherever you wanna go." She looked up. "Where do you want to go?"

They all looked at each other, and Sokka answered hesitantly, "This is probably too much to ask, but... Do you know where the Eastern Air Temple is?"

Kaylee blinked. "Can't say I've heard of it. You know what planet it's on?"

Several answers immediately presented themselves to Katara, from the snarky ("that other planet where everyone lives, you know the one with the sun?") to the meek ("there's more than one?") to the bluff ("the planet of Ba Sing Se, of course."). Unfortunately, all of them were somewhat... lacking. Sokka and Zuko appeared to be having similar conundrums.

"Um," she answered blankly.

"Well," Zuko replied.

"You see," Sokka said.

They were saved from answering by the sudden appearance of three people: a very large, very terrifying man in a too-tight shirt, a slightly shorter man in a long, brown coat, and a dark woman with masses of curly brown hair (that Katara was suddenly and deeply envious of). "Kaylee?" the shorter man said, in an odd tone, "explain to me what three kids are doing on my ship."

"They're not on the ship, Captain, they're... Okay," Kaylee said, cutting herself off mid-excuse at the apparent Captain's look. "They were lost, so I was just showin' them a map of the docks. They don't seem to know where they're goin'. You ever heard of an Eastern Air Temple?"

"No," he replied shortly. "And I ain't takin' on passengers, so don't even start."

"But they're lost!" Kaylee repeated, like it would change the man's mind. The dark woman snickered, but the burly man gave Katara a look that made her skin crawl.

"Kaylee."

"At least to Boros. Or Sihnon. We've gotta go that way to pick up Inara and all her stuff, and they'll probably be safer there."

"You forgettin' something about the state of our ship, Kaylee?" the Captain asked dangerously, but Kaylee shrugged.

"It'll be _fine_, Captain. They need passage. Just them."

"And our three friends," Sokka said in a cough. Kaylee blushed.

"And their three friends."

"Kaylee," the dark woman said, in a rich, amused voice, "we don't have the room for six passengers."

"Sure we do!" she cried. "There's five passenger dorms, and one open bunk. Sure, someone'll have to share a room, but it'll work."

"Kaylee, we are not taking on six random passengers, and that's - " The captain was cut off by a sound from within the metal hull; a slender, barefoot girl glided out and looked at them, turning to the captain.

"We have room," she said in a soft voice, as though that was final.

"Who is the captain on this ruttin' boat?" the man cried, and Kaylee winced.

Aang, Toph, and Suki chose that moment to find them. "There you are!" Aang shouted, drawing attention and causing all of their new friends to react violently. Within seconds of Aang's exclamation, the giant man had him in a headlock, and both the dark woman and the captain had pulled out large, dark cylinders that appeared to be weapons of a sort and pointed them at Suki and Toph.

"Wait!" Katara said, "They're friends, they aren't going to - !"

"The _last _thing we need is more attention," the captain grumbled, putting up his weapon and sighing. "'Specially not with Badger being..." he trailed off into some other language. The dark woman simply shrugged.

"Sir? We taking them or not? Either way, we need to move, and soon."

The captain made a face and turned to them. "Say we take you to Sihnon. What kind of pay you got for that sort of trip?"

Everyone turned to Zuko, who sighed, and rummaged through his pockets, pulling out a handful of gold and platinum coins. "That's all you brought?" Sokka hissed, and Zuko glared at him.

"The hell kinda money is that?" the big man - who still hadn't released Aang - said, peering into Zuko's hands.

"They look fancy," Kaylee muttered.

"It's pure gold and platinum," Zuko said, a little desperate. Katara understood; whoever these people were, they seemed much safer than wandering around the streets, and seemed to have an idea of things, which was more than any of them had at the moment. Much as she would rather solve this without help and get back home before bed time, she wasn't going to pass up what might be the only kindness they'd find in this spirits-forsaken place.

The captain blinked, and then looked from Zuko to the money in his hands, and back.

"That's more than enough to pay for passage to Sihnon," Kaylee said.

"Why are you so intent on bringing them with us?" the captain asked, and Kaylee gave him an odd look.

"They need help. And we can help 'em. That's what we do, ain't it?"

The captain laughed. "I don't who you take me for, but I am not Santa Claus, spreadin' good cheer wherever I go."

"They got money," Kaylee implored. The girl who had wandered in earlier spoke up suddenly, startling all of them.

"They're coming," she whispered, in a way that told Katara that she wasn't talking of them - her voice had taken on a wispy quality, like a draft of wind. She blinked and looked at Katara full in the face. "They'll steal Mother away," she said pointedly, and then turned to the captain. "Can we _go?_"

The captain growled, but didn't say anything else, just storming onto the ship. They all stood around confusedly for a moment until the dark woman glanced them. "You coming or not?"

"He didn't..." Katara started, and then looked around. "He didn't really say we could come..."

"He took your money, didn't he?" she replied, raising an eyebrow. "That means you're coming with us to Sihnon. Now, get on the ship."

* * *

Sokka didn't start to think this was a terrible, terrible idea until the ship started moving. And then he had to curb his fierce desire to scream like a little girl and crawl underneath the table because _oh holy shit they were moving up and really really fast and there were other ships coming into land and oh no_ -

Suki, however, found the entire thing absolutely fascinating, if completely alien, and suggested that they go talk to the pilot, which was sure to calm Sokka's nerves.

And for once in his life, something actually went his way. The pilot turned out to be an affable, good-natured man who went by the name Wash because "my parents secretly hated me" and seemed genuinely interested in talking to them. They also discovered that he was married to the terrifying dark woman, which instantly earned Sokka's undying respect.

"So, uh, how does this thing work?" Sokka asked, absently playing with one of Wash's toys. He quite liked the spiny dinosaur - it had character. "I mean, I kind of get the whole engine business, but how do you control it all from here if the engines are way down that way?"

Wash shrugged. "It's all hooked up. I need to be able to see where I'm going, and the engine lets off so much backdraft, if we keep it anywhere but the way back, we'd all die. I can teach you how to fly a ship, if you'd like."

"Really?"

"Sure," he replied, and smiled. "We'll start with one of the shuttles when we make our first stop. They're easier to handle and less expensive to fix."

"So," Suki interrupted, "what do we need to know to survive on this ship?"

"Don't piss Mal off, mostly," Wash said, shrugging. "Or Jayne, but he'll forgive just about anything if you're pretty enough. Do your part, stay out of the way if and when things get hairy, the general stuff. We won't eat you alive, I promise." He smiled, and for the first time since waking up in this awful place, Sokka actually felt like they might not all die screaming, horrible deaths.

"Um, I missed the introductions..." Suki muttered, and Wash glanced at her.

"Mal's the captain. Zoe's my wife, she's second-in-command. Jayne's the beast with the arms," he continued, miming giant biceps. "Kaylee's the mechanic, you met her on Persephone. Ah... Oh, Simon's the doctor, and River's his sister. She's the one with the, um, dress," he said, a touch lamely, as though there was something else he had really wanted to say but thought the better of it at the last minute. "And Inara's... Well, you haven't met her yet, but I'm sure you will."

"Isn't she the one you're picking up in this Sihnon place?" Sokka asked, watching the stars float by lazily. It was really pretty, being way out here, and being able to see the night sky from, well, the night sky. He could get used to this.

"Yeah, she is, but you'll meet her."

"We will? I thought we were stepping off there."

Wash gave him an odd look, and then stretched. "Well, _Serenity'_s got a way of sticking with you," he replied ominously, and left it at that.

* * *

Zuko had discovered a kindred spirit. Aang, on the other hand, most certainly had _not_.

"I just don't think it's justified!"

"I just don't care," Mal grumbled into his mug of not-water. Zuko was beginning to consider getting himself a mug of not-water, but the prospect of being drunk, on a completely unfamiliar ship, with completely unfamiliar technology, in a completely unfamiliar world just struck him as the worst idea humanly possible, so he made do with a cup of extremely unsatisfying tea.

"Aang, not everyone shares your beliefs," he said, for about the thousandth time. "Captain Reynolds disagrees with you, and while you're on his ship, you'll just have to comply." He wondered vaguely what kind of mixed-up parallel universe they were in that _he _had become the peacemaker.

"So you think the ends justify the means?" Aang asked, unwilling to let it go. Zuko clutched his forehead, feeling a migraine coming on. This would all be much easier if everyone involved would just _shut up_.

"No," Mal replied coolly, "I just think that some people need to die."

* * *

She was not _hiding._ She was just worried about the structural stability of the metal ship in space and thought that it would be best to examine the walls and floor from a more... tactile position. At any rate, she was observing the stability of the walls and floor in a position that was very difficult to get into and even harder to spot, so the voice exactly three inches from her right ear unsettled her somewhat.

"I want you to teach me to waterbend," the strange girl said.

Katara's startled shriek reverberated through the ship.

* * *

"Okay, so explain to me what happened here," Mal said, in a long-suffering tone.

"She was hiding," River said, matter-of-factly. "I scared her."

"And now she can't get out from where she was hiding. Seems like a bad choice of hiding places, don't it?"

Katara's muffled reply didn't _quite _reach the assembled crowd, but the gist of it did, and that basically amounted to _eat shit and die_.

"Geez, Katara, even I'm not scared," Toph said, snickering. Suki punched her lightly on the arm, but bit back a laugh anyway. It was rare that they got to see Katara so... humbled, and the sight was, admittedly, amusing as hell.

"It's different for you," she grumbled, voice taking on an oddly haunting quality from the close proximity of the metal spaceship and the way her whole body was squashed into the position she was in. "I'm... It's different," she finished, lamely.

"Okay," Kaylee trilled, waltzing into a room, ratchet wrench in hand. "This should get the bench off of her, and we can just put it back on when she's out, no harm done."

"From now on," Mal said, face buried in his hand (in precisely the same way that Zuko's was), "you are all going to stay in your rooms. Simon and River are just about moved out of their old rooms, so you'll be able to move in. I figure, the siblings can share?"

Suki raised a hand, "Sokka and I will share."

Mal blinked. "Oh good. _More _happy couples."

* * *

A/N: I caved (and a loyal reader asked me to, so, you know, there's that) and posted this. As you can tell, there are a few things immediately different than either series: One, Wash did not die at the end of Serenity because he _didn't_, Two, the pairings at the end of Avatar aren't really present here but, Three, it's been like six years, so it's not unreasonable to think that maybe things just fizzled out. I had this idea start floating around a long time ago, but I didn't actually start to write it until Zutara Week came up, and I was originally planning for it to just be a little fun one- or maybe two-shot, ha-ha, no big deal, but then, well, there were still more ideas floating around that were demanding to be written and they were _serious_ ideas like "How would Aang react to finding out about the Academy and Miranda" and "What if Katara's waterbending could help River" and "I want to see Zuko and Sokka take on a bunch of Reavers" so. Yeah.

As I mentioned above, yes, this was started for Zutara Week, so yes, there will be Zutara. However, there will also be, like, every pairing under the sun and several that the sun hides from, so don't let that turn you off. It's mainly an ensemble fic, really, I just decided that it would be lots of fun to play with two separate yet equally awesome ensembles. Tell me what you think!


	2. 102: public relations

take my love, take my land, take me where i cannot stand  
i don't care, i'm still free  
_you can't take the sky from me._

episode one:  
**strangers in a strange land**

chapter two:  
(_public relations_)

"So," Sokka said, sitting cross-legged on his and Suki's bed, and looked around at the assembled group. The passenger dorms were not exactly roomy, but they were nice enough, and he was already trying to come up with ways around the sliding paper-doors and near-total lack of privacy. He wondered if Wash might have any pointers. "What do we think?"

"I like it," Toph replied quickly, playing with her space-bracelet, which seemed considerably less interesting after recent events. "It's a little weird, and my bending's not perfect, but it's good enough. And these people have _awesome _weapons. I got that Jayne guy to show me his guns and it was _amazing._"

Three seconds of silence followed this sentence, and then everyone started talking at once.

"Toph, are you crazy?" -Suki

"What are guns?" -Sokka

"I do _not_ trust that guy, Toph!" -Aang

"You shouldn't go off alone with strangers!" -Katara

"Toph, that was a bad idea!" -Zuko

She responded with a snort. "What, it's not like he attacked me or anything. What's the worst thing that could happen?"

Sokka blinked. Either she honestly didn't know - which he genuinely hoped for, because the thought of Toph having sex made him feel _unclean_ - or she knew perfectly well and was messing with their heads. Or, worse, she knew perfectly well and wanted them to _think _she didn't, which would mean that she had _plans _to do some sort of thing with someone and that thought made him desperately want to commit ritual suicide.

"Okay, moving past... that," he said, and shivered, "what does everyone else think?"

"I like Wash," Suki replied unnecessarily. "And now that I know he and Zoe are married, she doesn't seem so scary."

"Wait," Zuko cut in, "Zoe is married to the pilot? That's... weird."

Suki shrugged. "No weirder than me and Sokka."

"I guess..."

"That River girl..." Katara mused, "she seems... off. She also knows about bending."

"What?" everyone asked, startled. Katara looked up.

"She asked me to teach her waterbending. I... well, that was when I screamed, so I didn't really get a chance to reply. I don't know, there's something weird about her."

"Hmm," Zuko replied, chin on his fist. "Mal told me she's an interesting character, and had something to do with the Alliance, whatever that is? He didn't seem like he wanted to talk about it. I think we need to figure out some information about this place if we want a chance at getting back home."

"But how?" Sokka asked. "We don't know anything about anything here, and there's only so many questions you can ask before people throw you off their ship."

"I know!" Toph cried, grinning. "Alcohol!"

Sokka stared at her. "One, you're underage. Two, that's not an answer. Three, how do you plan to get alcohol?"

"Mal had some earlier," Aang piped in.

"And it's totally an answer," Toph replied, still beaming. "We get Jayne drunk, and interrogate him. Then we know stuff!"

"Hmm, it could work," Sokka muttered, thinking about it seriously.

"Uh, can I say something?" Katara said, holding up a hand. "We don't know anything about Jayne, other than the fact that he's big, scary, and has lots and lots of weapons. Getting him drunk _might _be a bad idea."

"On the other hand, we don't have a whole lot of options," Zuko said, making a face. Katara shook her head.

"No," she said firmly. "I'll ask Kaylee if she has any scrolls or books that might have information for us. It's much more reliable, and doesn't involve Jayne."

"I like my plan better," Toph grumbled, but everyone ignored her.

"Okay, that's a good idea," Sokka said, nodding. "But we're confined to the dorms, aren't we?"

"Mal said we could go to the dining area whenever we liked, but that was before Katara... well," Suki said, and shot Katara a look. "I think, as long as we don't do anything wrong, we'll be all right."

"Then again," Sokka mused, tapping his chin, "Wash did say that we really don't want to piss Mal off. Maybe we should let him cool down some."

"Now _that_," Toph said, "is a plan I can agree with. You're being awful quiet, Twinkletoes. What do you think?"

Everyone turned to Aang, who didn't look pleased at the attention. "I, um, whatever you think is fine with me."

"I meant about the people we're traveling with," Toph replied, exasperated, although Sokka seriously doubted he'd actually been confused on that front.

"Oh," he said. A long moment passed, and then he shrugged. "I... They seem... nice."

He glanced to Zuko for help, but Zuko was pointedly not looking at Aang anymore, so he found nothing there. Sokka peered at the two of them. It wasn't hard to understand Aang's discomfort; after all, this crew seemed a little more... cynical than Aang was used to, and Sokka had gotten the distinct impression that, Kaylee and possibly Wash aside, any of them would kill anyone who stood in their way. He only hoped that they didn't end up _in the way_.

"Nice?" Toph asked, raising an eyebrow, always the one to challenge.

"Yeah," Aang replied blankly, and then landed on something positive to say, "Kaylee. She's really... she's friendly. I like her."

"And you haven't really met Wash yet," Suki offered tentatively. "I'm sure you'll like him, too."

"Right," Aang said, nodding. "I'm sure."

A moment of uncomfortable silence followed. Sokka coughed. "Well, whatever happens, there's not much we can do tonight. Or, well. Is it night?" He paused, thinking about that. "How can we tell the difference between night and day when we're not on the planet? _A_ planet. Whatever."

"It seems like night," Katara suggested, looking up as though she would find a blinking sign proclaiming the answer. "It was afternoon when we boarded, and it's been a few hours. Maybe we should get sleep? Or dinner?"

"Dinner..." Sokka moaned, but Toph shook her head.

"Nah, sleep first. I think they ate on that planet."

"By the way, can I just..." Suki started, and then shook her head. "What is this about multiple planets? I mean, obviously, they weren't lying to us, and I admit, flying through space is pretty cool," here, she laughed a bit, in a way that suggested she had probably always kind of dreamed of doing this, "but last time I checked, we didn't have a bunch of planets. Or ships that flew between them. Or guns."

"Obviously," Sokka said, tapping his chin, "something happened at the Eastern Air Temple that sent us to this bizzarro world. Worlds. Place."

"'Verse," a voice said, from the doorway, and everyone started. In the doorway was Mal, looking at them strangely. "Most people call it the 'Verse."

"Oh," Sokka replied dumbly.

"Seems to me that y'all got some explainin' to do."

"Um," Sokka replied dumbly.

"So why don't you just come out to the dining area and we can all talk?"

"Right," Sokka replied dumbly.

* * *

This, Suki mused, must be what a genuine trial felt like. The crew was all seated around the dinner table, watching where she and her friends were lined up in front of them. She tried to place the names to the faces she had seen, but she had never had all that great of a memory for names. Still, she knew Wash, and Zoe and Jayne were kind of hard to miss, Mal was easy enough to remember, and Kaylee stood out well enough. The other two, she supposed, must be the doctor and his sister that Wash had mentioned. She didn't think they looked especially friendly, although the sister didn't look especially sane either.

"So," Sokka started, and glanced around, trying to figure out how to start. Jayne snickered and took a deep, pointed sip of what was probably not water. "It's like this. Um."

"We don't know how we got here," Zuko said, saving him, and presumably banking on the goodwill he'd earned with Mal earlier in the day. "We were minding our own business in a completely different... universe, I don't know, and then we were on that planet. We started looking around for answers and directions, and Katara," he nodded to her, "ran into Kaylee. The rest, you already know."

"Tell us about this mystery world of yours," Mal prompted, clearly unimpressed. Zuko nodded.

"There are four nations, or, well, there _were_," here he faltered a bit, and then quickly regained steam. "The water tribes, at either pole, which Sokka and Katara are from, the Earth Kingdom on the eastern continent, where Toph and Suki are from, and the Fire Nation, where I'm from."

"And Aang?"

"Air Nomad," Aang replied. "But I'm the last one."

"What happened to the rest of them?" Wash asked, brow furrowed. Everyone glanced uncomfortably at Zuko.

"Genocide," he said bluntly, "In the war."

"There's always a war, isn't there?" Kaylee said, laughing a bit, trying to clear the tension. It didn't work, and only earned her an unamused glance from Mal.

"So, you're from this strange world with terribly uncreative names," Mal summarized. "Any particular reason for those?"

There was a moment of silence as they tried to figure out how to explain this without being thoroughly mocked, thrown out of the airlock, or possibly killed right there, but Toph took the initiative before any explaining could be done. She pulled the space bracelet from around her arm and easily molded it into a crude pair of chopsticks. Kaylee gasped, and Toph handed over the chopsticks. "It's called bending. I'm from the Earth Kingdom, so I bend earth, or stone. And metal, because I'm awesome."

"Bullshit," Jayne grumbled, but Kaylee was too busy examining the chopsticks to care. The doctor (Sam? Iman?) leaned over her shoulder and peered at them.

"That doesn't... she must be manipulating the atoms, but I don't..."

"So," Zoe cut in, apparently unfazed by the events. "I take it the Fire Nation controls fire, the Water Tribes water, and the Air people air?"

"Right," Zuko replied, and lit a tiny, rather pathetic fire in his palm. "I... usually, it's better than that, but for some reason I can't firebend as well here."

"That just doesn't make _sense_," the doctor cried. "There's nothing _to _manipulate! Fire is just a chemical reaction! He can't have fire without fuel."

"He just did, though," Kaylee said, a bit amused.

"It does have fuel," River said at the same time, her voice distant. "Firebending comes from the breath." Zuko stared at her. She smiled. "Fire is life, takes its life from within the bender."

"How do you..."

"River, that's not fuel... I would have thought you'd..."

She didn't let him finish his sentence, "There's nothing to dispute. Obviously, they _can _manipulate the classical elements. The only question left is _how_."

"Sounds good," Mal said, and then looked to them. "How?"

"The spirits," Aang replied brightly.

"Oh - " Mal descended into what sounded like very vehement cursing, albeit not any kind of cursing Suki had ever heard, and she had heard (or said) most kinds that existed. "Not more of this."

Kaylee was laughing outright now. "Seems like someone's tryin' to tell ya something, don't it?"

"Did I say something wrong?" Aang asked, eyes wide.

"No," Wash replied gently, "Mal just isn't... he doesn't really... he's what you'd call an atheist."

"What's that?"

Almost a full minute of total silence passed after this question. Even Kaylee couldn't laugh. Finally, Aang coughed. "Can we just... act like I didn't say anything?"

"I can work with that," Wash said.

"So..." Zuko said, cutting into the awkward silence. "What else?"

"Oh," Kaylee cried, "Simon's got a 'cyclopedia he can lend ya, so you can read up on... everything. That's good, right?"

Simon, Suki thought. Try to remember _Simon._ She had all the other names, but for some reason, she kept remembering him as Iman, which was weird, because _Iman_ was this creepy merchant guy who had passed through Kyoshi once when she was young and tried to buy her off her parents for... nefarious purposes. She assumed that this was the reason for her intense and irrational dislike of the doctor.

"That's great, actually," Katara breathed. "Toph, can you get it?"

"What good's it do me to get an encyclopedia?"

"You can't read?" Kaylee asked, confused. Toph blinked.

"I'm _blind._"

"Wait," Wash, Zoe, and Mal all said at once, "you're blind?"

"You mean you didn't know?" Jayne replied gruffly, and Toph smirked. Everyone turned to him, and he shrugged. "I knew."

Mal let out a string of presumably-cursewords, and then shook his head. "All right. _All right._ I'm going to bed, and I'm gonna pretend this whole day is just a real nasty dream. _Good night._" With that, he stalked off and disappeared down the hallway. Katara stared.

"Is that... can we go?"

"I think so," Zoe replied, barely managing to hide a small smile.

"Here, let's get the encyclopedia!" Kaylee said brightly, and bounced off, returning a moment later with a strange sort of book. It should have confused Suki, but then, she had seen so many weird things today that this didn't even register. "You open it up and talk to it about whatever you want to know, and it tells ya stuff. It ain't perfect, but it's a start."

"Thanks," Zuko said, inspecting it absently. "When do you want it back?"

Simon shrugged. "It doesn't really matter anymore. Keep it, if you'd like."

"Those things're never as useful as they seem," Zoe said ominously.

* * *

Zuko woke up abruptly to the realization that someone was in his room, and he was not pleased. It had taken him forever to fall asleep in the first place - as the ship made more noise than even the one he'd been banished on, and it was completely unfamiliar, and the bed appeared to be little more than a mattress-shaped amalgamation of rocks and other lumpy things - and his chances of getting any more sleep before dawn (or whatever constituted dawn here) were slim.

This was, he would later explain, why he almost killed Katara.

She didn't scream, or even shriek, instead letting out a stream of whispered cursewords and flailed about desperately, clutching his arm and pulling him off the bed and onto the floor beside her. He lit a small fire in his palm.

Katara was sitting in an extremely undignified position, the little encyclopedia in her hands, eyes wide and gasping for breath.

"Are you _lost?_" he asked, and tried to un-tangle his feet from the sheets.

"No, I... Zuko, I did some research on this place and..."

"And?"

"I think we're on the wrong side."

He stared at her for a long moment, and then turned on the actual overhead light (something he was just getting used to). "What makes you say that?"

She scrambled up onto the bed beside him and held out the encyclopedia, but didn't give it to him. "I was reading up on the war that ended almost seven years ago. It was the Alliance versus the Independents."

"So?"

"So, Mal wears a brown coat, doesn't he?"

He blinked at her, and tried to connect these two statements, but unfortunately came up completely blank. "I... Yeah..."

"The Independents, they were called the Browncoats in the war. I think Mal fought for them."

"And that means... what, exactly?"

She made a frustrated sound. "I'm not sure. This thing... it was obviously made by the Alliance, but it seems reasonable enough, and... Well, if it's to be believed, they did some pretty bad things in the war."

"Katara," Zuko said firmly, "take it from someone who knows - history is written by the victor." She didn't seem to see where he was going with that, so he continued, "Whatever the Independents might have done in the war, I'm sure the Alliance did just as bad, or worse. It's _war_. There is no good side."

"I don't know..." she muttered, looking worried.

"Well, either way, there's not much we can do about it now. Why did you come to me, anyway?"

She blushed. "I... I was going to talk to Sokka about it, but..."

"You got lost."

"Well, _no_, I just... didn't realize this wasn't Sokka's room."

"So," he said, pretending to think about it and suppressing a snicker, "you're basically saying that you got... _lost_."

She stuck her tongue out at him.


	3. 103: out of the abbey

take my love, take my land, take me where i cannot stand  
i don't care, i'm still free,  
_you can't take the sky from me_

episode one:  
**strangers in a strange land**

chapter three:  
(_out of the abbey_)

"So, um... hi," Katara said, poking her head in the doorway. The doctor - Simon, right? - turned.

"Hello. It's... Katrina?"

"Katara, actually," she replied, and Simon smiled, rubbing the back of his head.

"Sorry, I'm not... Um, is there something I can help you with?" he asked.

Well, she thought. He was just adorable. "Yeah, um," she started, and then lost track of her thought. "I was... You see," she sighed, and then tried to start over. "It's like this. In our world, waterbending can... well, I can heal. And you're the healer for the ship, so I just wanted to, um, talk to you and..." She didn't want to say _offer my services _because that sounded sort of creepy and uncomfortable, but she didn't know how else to say it. "See if I could help any?"

"You can... heal with water?" he said, looking at her like she'd grown another head. "How does that work, exactly?"

"Um, well, I just..." How _did_ it work, exactly? It was kind of like trying to explain music to a deaf person. To Katara, waterbending was natural, and using it to heal was like... well, it was like using her voice to sing. "It's hard to explain," she muttered, and Simon nodded. Strangely enough, she really wanted to impress this Simon person, not just because he was handsome, and older, and clearly smart...

Okay, maybe it was.

"Well, what did you want to help me with? I've got most of the medical work under control, unless something goes really wrong..."

"I could just... I mean, I..." She did not like feeling flustered like this. "Waterbending is great for healing, but sometimes it doesn't work, you know?"

He stared. "No," he replied bluntly, "I... can't say that I do."

"If... I mean, if someone has internal injuries, or they've been shot with an arrow, or things like that, I can't do anything about it, and I'd like to learn how."

"You want me to teach you surgery?"

There was a long moment where they just stood there and stared at each other, this huge barrier of complete confusion between them. "I want to know how to remove arrowheads, or... what are they called?"

"Bullets?" he prompted, and then mimed the shape of a weapon. "What the weapons shoot?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "You don't have to teach me all the details, but... First Aid, you know, if something goes wrong and we can't get to you."

"That seems reasonable..." he mused. "But I'll have to get a dummy to let you practice on, or wait until someone gets shot..."

"Don't you mean if?" she asked blankly, and Simon gave a dark, cynical laugh.

* * *

"So, we make this delivery, and - "

"Hang on," Wash said, raising a hand. "I seem to remember going over this a few times before."

Mal ran a hand over his face. "There ain't so many people willin' to deal with us, 'specially now. We gotta take what we can get. Just as a precaution, though, Jayne, I want you and Zoe wearing vests."

"Way ahead of you, sir," Zoe replied.

"You know, I'm pretty sure we can find someone to sell this cargo to who hasn't tried to kill us twice before," Wash insisted.

"Yeah?" Mal asked, crossing his arms. "Who?"

Wash opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, and then landed on something - "Fanty and Mingo."

It was Jayne who answered, "Yeah, right, after that little show with River? Ain't no way they'll deal with us."

"Aw, it was just a bar fight," Wash said, shrugging. "Plenty of those happen all the time."

"Answer's no, Wash," Mal replied sharply. "They were swindlin' us, anyway."

"And Patience wasn't?"

"The point," Zoe said, cutting into the conversation and laying a hand on Wash's shoulder, "is that Patience _failed._"

"Did Fanty and Mingo actually make off with that money, or did River distract them out of it? I wasn't paying attention."

Zoe rolled her eyes, and then the proceedings were interrupted by the arrival of Toph - armed to the teeth, courtesy of a weirdly-proud Jayne - and Aang, who looked terrified.

"Wherever you're going," Toph said gleefully, "I want in."

"And I'm not letting her go alone," Aang added, although his face betrayed his utter horror at the concept of Toph with mass quantity of projectile weapons.

"She ain't alone," Jayne said flippantly, and then whistled. "You know, I might let you handle Vera someday, li'l girl."

Everyone who knew Jayne shuddered. Zoe stepped up. "Toph, it's cute that you want to join, but... you're blind."

"Yeah, so?"

"You can't shoot a gun if you're blind."

She grinned, and it was positively _feral_, "See, cap'n, that's where you're wrong. I see through my feet, which makes me an _awesome_ shot."

"That made absolutely no sense," Wash said.

"She feels the vibrations in the ground," Aang explained. "And we've worked out our fighting styles pretty well over the past few years. She takes care of anything on the ground, I take care of anything in the air."

"You do realize that we might have to kill people, don't you?" Mal asked, and Aang looked from the captain to Toph, torn, before finally sighing.

"Yeah, I do," he said quietly, "but I can't leave Toph alone."

"You totally can, Twinkletoes, I've got Jayne to help me," she replied brightly, and Aang's face darkened a bit. He didn't say it, but everyone else could clearly see the _that was my point_ written all over him. Mal considered this for a moment - on the one hand, Aang annoyed the hell out of him, but on the other hand, he was right and Mal had no intention of keeping watch over a teenage girl with delusions of grandeur.

"All right, fine," he conceded, shrugging. "If you die, it wasn't my fault and I still expect to get paid. Make sure you wear a vest."

"A vest?" Aang asked blankly, and Mal closed his eyes and prayed for patience.

"A bulletproof vest," Zoe explained. "I don't think we have any that'll fit him, sir."

"It's all right," Toph said, "I'll just earthbend us some shields if we need them."

* * *

Zuko was torn. He rather liked Kaylee - she was sweet and friendly, and reminded him an awful lot of Ty Lee - but he also wasn't especially interested in anything she was saying. She seemed to be under the impression that he had an interest in engines and machinery, and was so excited to have someone on board who wanted to hear her talk about her passion that he didn't have the heart to tell her to _please_ shut up.

Luckily, Suki was also in the engine room, and was actually interested in what went on there - which was strange, as he'd never pegged Suki as that sort - so he didn't have to do much other than nod and smile at the right places.

"So, if that fails, the whole engine goes?" Suki asked, eyes wide, and Kaylee nodded.

"Yup. It actually happened once," she replied, and shuddered. "It wa'n't pretty."

"How do you keep it in repair? It seems like such a small thing..."

"It is," Kaylee said, "but I've got this cool system..." She went on to explain, in terms that Zuko did not at all comprehend, how she kept everything running. Suki seemed to be in love.

He wondered how things were back home. How was the Fire Nation doing without him, and without the Avatar? Were there search parties out hunting for them? Did they even know they were missing? Had their home world just ceased to exist when they appeared here? It was a terrible thought. He imagined everything he knew just not existing - Uncle, and Mai, and Azula, and Ba Sing Se, and that amazing little diner that had never asked questions about the Fire Lord visiting - and it made him a little sick.

This place was nice, sure, but he liked his home - or, well, he liked it on average - and he wanted to get back there. It was starting to seem like a hopeless dream, though. They had no leads, no ideas, and the only way they knew that the whole thing wasn't just a hallucination was their bending. And worse, he seemed to be the only person who cared. Sokka was determined to learn how to pilot a ship, Toph was having the time of her life, Aang was desperately trying to keep Toph from accidentally killing herself, Suki was fascinated with all parts of this world, and Katara...

Katara. She seemed unsure, which was something, at least. He wondered if he should talk to her about this. She was more concerned about figuring out the war and which side Mal had been on in it, but it was at least better than nothing.

"What do you think, Zuko?" Suki asked, startling him out of his reverie. He froze, and blinked several times. Kaylee giggled.

"Looks like he was thinkin' about someone," she teased.

He was about to panic and insist that no, of course he wasn't, but then he realized that this was his chance. "I was, actually," he replied, shocking Suki. "I was just thinking... I haven't seen Katara since breakfast."

"She wanted to talk to Simon about something," Suki answered, but Kaylee's eyes lit up in a way that frankly terrified him.

"Ooh, Katara," she trilled, drawing out the syllables, and placing a hand on his back, leading him out of the engine room. "Go get 'er now, while the Cap'n's off on the job an' the dorms are empty," Kaylee said, grinning hugely. Suki tried, and failed, to stifle her laughter. Zuko paled.

"That's not what I - "

"_Sure_ it ain't," Kaylee replied, and pushed him lightly, leaving engine grease on his back.

* * *

"All right," Wash said, leaning back in his seat. Sokka, perched on the floor next to him with a look of pure adoration on his face, sat up a little higher.

"Now you can teach me to pilot?"

Wash grinned. "C'mon. We can't go far, 'cause we've gotta be ready to go at a moment's notice, but I can show you a few tricks on the shuttle."

Sokka hopped up and trotted after Wash, still beaming, and didn't even notice the way that Suki and Kaylee were snickering and whispering to each other in the hallway. He was getting to fly an spaceship. An actual spaceship. He hadn't felt this giddy since they'd defeated Ozai. It was almost pathetic, really, how excited this concept made him.

"Okay," Wash announced, showing him into the little shuttle. It was clearly used mostly for storage, packed with boxes upon boxes of things. One of them was open a little, and Sokka peered in, finding an old, thick book with writing all over the pages and a sheaf of paper - which appeared to have once been part of the book - slid carefully inside it. "That used to belong to the Shepherd," Wash said, and Sokka jumped.

"Huh?"

"Shepherd Book," he explained. "That was his. He... died a few weeks ago."

"I'm sorry," Sokka replied, feeling strangely intrusive, standing there holding a dead man's book. "What happened to him?"

"The Alliance," was all Wash said. "Now let's show you the ropes."

* * *

"I'll admit," Mal said, hands on his hips, "I've had better ideas."

"Which ones are those, sir?" Zoe replied dryly, and Mal glanced at her, unamused.

Jayne's voice came over the intercom, "_We dealing, or what?_"

"She'll show," Mal told him, never taking his eyes off the horizon. "She has to," he added, to himself.

"Why is that, sir?" Zoe asked, hand on her shotgun. "We did kill some of her men the last time we dealt with her."

"Yeah, but only 'cause she tried to get away without payin'. If she'd played fair, no one woulda got hurt." He looked around warily. "She needs what we got."

"There are other people she can deal with, sir," Zoe said gravely. "I don't like this. We should cut our losses and go back to the ship."

"Have I ever done that?"

"_Yes_," Jayne said through the intercom, and Mal jumped.

"Well, I ain't doin' it this time," he replied bitterly, to both Zoe and Jayne. "We need the money."

"We can convert the money that Zuko gave us for passage, sir, and we don't have to deal with Patience."

"We don't even know if we _can_ convert that to real money," he retorted, "and I don't like havin' Alliance goods on my ship. Ain't done me any favors yet."

A new voice came over the intercom - "_Horses, coming from... What's that direction?_"

"_Ow,_" Aang cried, and then answered, "_East, I think._"

"From the town," Mal confirmed, and then mused for a moment on how useful that little blind girl could turn out to be. The rest of them - save possibly Zuko - he could do without, but Toph was proving herself to be a damn good ally. "See? I told ya they'd show."

"_Lots of them,_" Toph said, an edge to her voice, "_I count at least seven._"

"_Wasn't this supposed to be a simple deal?_" Aang asked. "_Why so many?_"

"'Cause it's Patience," Zoe answered, already bracing for the worst. Finally, the horses that Toph had already sensed came into view. Sure enough, seven of them, with Patience at the forefront. It was eerily - and unhappily - familiar.

"Well, well, well," Patience said when she rode up, a sour look on her face. "You thinkin' maybe third time's the charm?"

"Can we not exchange bullets this time?" Mal asked, annoyed. "I just want to deal like normal folk."

"Maybe you shouldn't have set up snipers, then," she replied coolly, but Mal wasn't especially worried. Jayne could hold his own in battle, and if Toph could pick out seven horses from half a mile away, then he didn't think she'd have too many issues with Patience's people.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't give me reason to," he countered. "I've got the supplies you need, hidden in the brush about a quarter of a mile that way," he gestured vaguely south. "Just pay me and we can walk away without any wounds or dead horses this time."

"You know you have to show me proof you've got the goods."

"Naturally," he replied, and nodded to Zoe, who opened the small box they'd brought with them. Inside were a collection of seeds, carefully divided into little glass canisters. "In this one, you've got tomatoes and cucumbers. Plenty more for the taking. We agreed on the price."

Naked greed fell over Patience's face - fruits and vegetables were like gold to these outlying planets. The old woman made a face, but finally relented, handing over the money as Zoe handed her the box. "I don't like it, but in the interest of not repeating ourselves, I'll deal. Personally, I think I came out on - "

Just then, the ground shook and a loud crashing came from the direction Patience had ridden. Surprise and then anger crossed over her face.

"She was trying to play us again, wasn't she?" Mal asked Zoe, ducking as the dust cloud rose up from the distance.

"I think so, sir," Zoe replied.

"Toph, was that you?" he asked into the intercom.

All he got in response was a giggle.

* * *

"That was _dangerous_," Aang said, watching the men and horses scramble to regain their footing and their weapons in the massive trench that had just formed.

"That was _awesome_," Toph replied. Aang hastily grabbed her and forced her to the ground when shots started flying wildly out of the hole. She kicked again and they abruptly stopped, the hole suddenly gone, although eerie, panicked screaming could be heard from the place it had been. He glared, even though she couldn't see him.

"Toph."

"What? I'll let 'em out if the Cap'n wants me to."

"You should let them out now before they use up all their air." She rolled her eyes and poked the ground delicately, forming a little hole. The shrieking intensified.

"There, now they won't suffocate."

Patience chose that moment to ride up, coming up short at what she saw - two young teenagers, of maybe eighteen at the most, standing on the ground next to a little hole, from which terrified screaming could be heard. She stared.

"Do I get to shoot now?" Toph asked the intercom, a grin blooming on her face.

"_Didn't you ever hear that discretion is the better part of valor?_" Zoe's voice replied, and Toph smirked.

"Nope."


	4. 104: dinosaurs

take my love, take my land, take me where i cannot stand  
i don't care, i'm still free  
_you can't take the sky from me._

episode one:  
**strangers in a strange land**

chapter four:  
(_dinosaurs_)

"Zuko!" Katara cried, running toward where he was lingering on the catwalk, waiting for Aang and Toph to return (hopefully with all extremities) from Mal's job. "Just the person I was looking for!"

"Oh?" he replied, raising an eyebrow. From somewhere vaguely behind him, he heard whispering that sounded suspiciously like Suki and Kaylee spying on him. "What do you need?"

"I've got a mission, and you're going to help me with it," she said firmly, crossing her arms. She was, he noticed, clutching that encyclopedia thing in her left hand. Deciding that this couldn't possibly be good - and also that he didn't want Suki or Kaylee to have any _further_ "proof" that he was yearning desperately for Katara's body - he nodded.

"All right. Let's talk in the dining room. This place _echoes_," he added pointedly, glancing behind him. He heard a sharp gasp, but unfortunately, Katara didn't.

"Um, okay..." she said, looking at him strangely. "You're talking to the walls now?"

He considered telling her that Suki had joined up with Kaylee and were now pushing for him to jump her bones, but that would involve explaining to her that, well, Suki and Kaylee were pushing for him to jump her bones. He rubbed the back of his neck. "This, um... People like to listen in to conversations," he offered, wincing at his complete lack of grace.

Katara nodded, "I _know_," she replied fervently. "River attacked me earlier with first aid information, it was really weird."

He blinked. "What?"

She waved a hand, "I was asking Simon if he would teach me some first aid tricks, and then River showed up out of nowhere and started teaching me. When I asked her why she was listening, she just gave me this strange look." She shrugged. "I guess she thinks that if she teaches me first aid, I'll teach her waterbending."

Zuko started toward the dining room, thinking. "Well, it won't hurt to try, will it?" he asked. "I mean, either she can bend or she can't, so you may as well give her a lesson to see if she's even capable of it. And if she is, well... Having another waterbender on the team would be good, right?"

"Yeah," she said slowly, as though she still didn't really want to do it but realized that she didn't have any excuse _not _to. "Anyway," she continued, changing the subject sharply and ducking through a doorway, "back to our mission."

He decided not to comment on the fact that she was assuming he would help her - mainly because he knew he would - and simply settled down into one of the comfortable little chairs right off the dining area. "All right," he said, "what mission is this?"

"We are going to find out _information,_" she replied with a flourish and a grin, and he stared at her blankly, waiting for the rest.

When it didn't come, he prompted her. "Information?"

"Yes."

There was a long pause. Finally, he sighed, and decided to bite, "What kind of information?"

Her grin widened, and she flopped dramatically into the chair beside him. "I'm glad you asked! We need to know everything we can about the Independents and the Alliance. You and Mal are friends, right?"

"Kind of?"

"Right," she confirmed, as though he hadn't said anything. "So you're going to ask him all about his role in the war. He probably won't kill you, but I don't think he likes me very much, so I won't ask. Meanwhile, I'll talk to River and Simon about the Alliance. We'll figure out everything we can, and then decide what to do with this information."

"...What would we do with this information?" he asked, feeling slightly stupid.

"That depends," she replied ominously, "on what we find out. If it turns out that we're on a... well, a pirate ship or something like that, we'll need to do something about it, won't we?"

"Like what?" he countered, suddenly desperate to convince of her of just how _bad _an idea this was. "Katara, these people have been nothing but kind to us. We're not... I don't know, turning them in to the authorities or something just because they've stolen before."

She scowled, obviously not liking the way this conversation had turned, "What if the Alliance is some kind of huge peacekeeping organization and they're trying to stir up war?"

"Then we get away," he replied, like it was obvious. "Or we find out why they would want war. My gut says these people aren't bad."

"Well, my gut says they _are._"

He bit back a scream of frustration. "Why do you think that?"

"Where did they get the cargo that they're selling now?" she asked, standing up, and then went on without giving him a chance to answer. "And what is Jayne's job here? All he seems to do is clean his weapons and make innuendos, but he went with Zoe and Mal and Toph and Aang on that job. Why did Simon say that it was only a matter of time before someone got shot?" He tried to cut into her rambling at this - when did he say that? - but she kept going, agitated, "Why did they fight against the Alliance? Why were they in such a rush to get off that planet? How did all of these people end up on this ship? Why did - "

"All right!" he cried, grabbing her by the shoulders. "I get it! There are a lot of unanswered questions. But you're missing the point."

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "What point would that be?"

"That just because someone is a thief doesn't make them evil!" he answered, suppressing the urge to shake sense into her. "So, they're bandits. They fly around space stealing things and selling them off to other people. There are _worse _things a person can do. They could be, I don't know, raping and eating innocent civilians." She made a face.

"That's a bit much, don't you think?"

He glared. "Look, all I'm saying is, just because they're smugglers doesn't mean they're evil. They've been nice to us. They took us in and gave us a place to stay, and if you've got some huge evil secret to protect, you don't take passengers."

She didn't look convinced, but she also didn't look like she was about to cram an ice-sickle into any of his orifices, so he considered it a win.

"And anyway," he continued, in a softer voice, "we don't even know all the details yet."

"Right," she said, sounding slightly disappointed, and then walked away.

* * *

"Hello."

Sokka let out a magnificently undignified shriek, and narrowly avoided crashing down the stairs. Wash had left him to his own devices in the shuttle after showing him around (and after getting a wave from Mal that they would probably need to leave the vicinity "post haste"). Unfortunately, due to the impending need to flee the planet, he hadn't been able to actually get up in the air and fly around, but he was reasonably confident that he'd have the chance on their next stop. So he was just leaving the shuttle, hoping to make for the bridge and absorb more knowledge from the pilot when a voice - from above! - had startled him.

Heart racing, gasping for breath, and hoping against hope that no one had seen his reaction, he looked up, straight into the wide, brown eyes of River Tam. She was smiling. And also hanging from the ceiling.

"Hi," he replied, in as strong a voice as he could. "What are you doing up there?"

"Waiting for you," she answered simply, and didn't elaborate, instead choosing to peer intently into his face.

He stared. She was rather pretty, if deeply unnerving. "Um. Why is that?"

"Simon was talking about you," she said matter-of-factly. "I want to know why."

"I... didn't know that," he said uncertainly. She nodded.

"I guess you _are _attractive..." she muttered, and continued to smile. "I approve."

"Approve of what?" he asked, alarmed. Her grin widened, and she twisted around so she was hanging with her back to him, and landed - without a sound - on the catwalk in front of him. "Approve of your brother thinking I'm - Hey!" But she was already gliding away serenely, leaving Sokka disturbed and unsettled behind her.

"Oh," a voice said from behind him, and Sokka (again) jumped. It was Simon. "There you are. Have you seen River?"

He turned and _looked_ at Simon distrustingly. If River was to be believed - and he had no reason why she shouldn't be - Simon found him "attractive". He glanced over the doctor, and decided that it wasn't all that surprising, really. The man was, after all, dressed in a sweater-vest and was, somehow, impeccably groomed.

"Yes..." he said slowly, and Simon looked confused and - although Sokka might have been imagining it - hurt. "She went that way," he continued, pointing toward the dining room.

"All right," Simon replied, and stood still for a long, awkward moment. "Can I get past you?" he asked finally, and Sokka stepped aside, still peering at the doctor.

* * *

Zuko was sitting at the dining room, still frustrated over Katara's... Katara-ness, when River glided into the room and began calmly throwing ingredients into a pot.

"It's River, right?" he asked, joining her at the stove. She nodded serenely, adding cinnamon and chile powder to the... whatever she was making. He watched her uncertainly, trying to decide if there was any method to the spices she was adding - which now included dried parsley and some powdery white stuff that could have been flour - before continuing. "Um, Katara wanted to talk to you about - "

"Water," she said sharply, interrupting him. He blinked.

"Uh, no, she actually - "

"Water," she said more firmly, and glared at him. Finally, he got it.

"Oh, you need water for the... Right," he muttered, looking around for a sink or well or something - ah! He reached out to take the pot from her, but she held onto it, fighting him for control with an angry look on her face. After a moment of intense struggle, he gave up and decided to just use a cup or a jar to hold the water. "Anyway," he continued conversationally, "she wanted to know about the Alliance."

River shook her head violently. "_No_."

He turned to her, staring blankly, and it wasn't until he felt his hands get wet that he realized the jar had overflown. He cursed under his breath and turned off the water, going back to River and pouring it in the pot. "All right, then," he said softly. "What are you making?"

"Dinner," she replied happily. It didn't look like much to him - in fact, it looked completely inedible - but her grin was so luminous that he couldn't comment on that. He was sharply reminded of the first time Katara had tried to cook at the Palace's kitchen, and the utter failure that she managed to concoct, although she had insisted throughout the entire thing that she knew _exactly _what she was doing. Everyone had just smiled and nodded and pretended that it was delicious, and then promptly raided the kitchens for something edible.

"Oh," he started, looking at the milky substance in the pot. Occasionally, as she stirred it languidly, dark specks would rise to the surface and swirl around. He tried to come up with something complimentary to say, but nothing came up that wouldn't anger her or possibly make her cry, and Zuko _hated _seeing girls cry. (He also hated it when they were angry with him, but due to how often this happened to him, he was more used to it.) Suddenly, though, she started giggling.

He was about to ask, when Simon walked in, looking behind him curiously. "Why was Sokka staring at - River, what are you doing?"

"Cooking dinner," she replied simply. A flash of panic crossed over his face and he broke into a run, nearly crashing into Zuko in his haste to pull River away from the stove. She did not go easily, looking agitated, and finally turned her huge eyes onto Zuko pleadingly.

"Uh," Zuko said, unsure of what was happening, "I was right here, she's not - "

"River," Simon said in a long-suffering voice, "you know you shouldn't be around the stove."

"Not gonna burn myself," she replied, sulking.

"You said that last time." Simon sighed, and then looked into the pot, his fear turning to bemusement. "What were you cooking, anyway?" She huffed and looked away, refusing to answer, so he turned to Zuko, who shrugged. River slipped out of her brother's arms and slinked away to the little alcove where he and Katara had been earlier, pouting. Simon shook his head and took the pot off the stove, giving it the same confused look he'd been wearing for the past day or so.

"So," Zuko started, thinking that he might have more luck with Simon, "Katara spoke to me earlier..."

"Is this about her brother?" he asked, looking up. Zuko hesitated; that, he had to admit, was probably the last thing he expected Simon to say.

"...What about Sokka?"

"He was acting... strange," Simon said, rubbing the back of his head. "And staring at me. Do you know why?"

"I... No," Zuko replied, just as confused as the doctor. Why would Sokka being staring at Simon? "What kind of strange?"

Simon shuffled uncomfortably, and poured out the mixture that River had been cooking, "Strange," was all he said.

* * *

Sokka had expected something more from Suki when he explained his suspicions to her, and he'd even expected more from Kaylee, who in spite of being attached to Suki's hip, seemed reasonable enough. Instead, they were both laughing so hard they couldn't breathe.

* * *

"All right," Mal said, closing the doors behind them. Toph, her arm firmly in Zoe's ungentle grip, scowled. "We're not doing _that_ again."

"Didn't you say that last time, sir?" Zoe asked dryly. Mal glared.

"I _meant_ - Oh, forget it. Aang, get the doc to check on that wound." The boy in question was pale and shaken from his first encounter with bullets and Toph-with-bullets, even though he'd really only been grazed on the leg (by the aforementioned Toph-with-bullets). Aang nodded and limped away to the infirmary, glancing darkly behind him at his best friend.

"I'm _sorry, _okay!" she cried. "Jeez, you _accidentally _shoot one person just one time..."

"Jayne - " Mal said sharply, and then caught himself, "No, actually, _Zoe_, when we get to Sihnon, would you teach our little blind maniac to shoot proper-like?"

"Of course, sir."

"Hey!" Jayne protested, "I could teach 'er to shoot!"

"I do _not_ trust you with an eighteen-year-old girl," Mal replied coolly, and hit the intercom. "Wash, take us out of the world, _quickly._"

"It'll be a while before Patience can get here!" Toph pouted. "You've gotta admit, I was helpful!"

Mal rolled his eyes, and muttered, "I knew taking them along was a bad idea," while he stomped off toward the Infirmary to make sure that Aang wasn't sobbing into Simon's shoulder or anything of the sort.

"Eh, it was fine," Jayne said, shrugging, and clapped Toph on the back. "We got us a new gun-arm outta the deal, di'n't we? C'mon," he said jovially, pulling out a cigar, "let's _celebrate!_"

Zoe, however, still clutching Toph's arm, glared at Jayne until he backed down. "I'm not leaving her alone with you," she said bluntly. "You're a bad influence."

"Bad influence? Aw, c'mon - "

"No," she replied sharply, pulling Toph along. "You and me," she said to the young girl, "are going to have gun-handling lessons, starting now."

"But Jayne already taught me - "

"That's why you're learning from _me_," she countered blandly, glaring at Jayne. "Up to the bridge, go," she said, releasing Toph and nudging her forward. "There's plenty of guns in the locker up there."

"And your husband," Toph mumbled petulantly. Zoe glared, before remembering that Toph couldn't see it, and so compensated by pushing her forward again. "I get it, I get it," she growled, stomping away in the same direction Mal had gone. "First, can we check on Aang?"

"Want to make sure he's not scared to death of you now?"

"No!" she replied, offended, and when Zoe didn't say anything else, she sighed. "Yeah."

"All right," Zoe conceded, feeling strangely motherly. Against all odds, she _liked _Toph. Sure, she was as stubborn as Mal and as crazy as Jayne, but she had a way about her that was just lovable, and even though Zoe should have wanted to throw the little girl out of the airlock, she found herself amused by her antics and strangely affectionate toward her. Somehow, the blind girl had wormed her way into Zoe's - and if she knew anything about the captain, Mal's - heart. She suspected that this was why Aang put up with her, even going so far as to put his morals aside to protect her.

Toph, oddly enough, inspired that kind of devotion.

If the girl was younger, Zoe might have thought about talking to Wash about adopting her. Hell, even now she might talk to Wash about it, or at least about taking her under their wings. God knew they would be better for her than leaving her to Jayne's tutelage. She resolved to discuss the matter with her husband, and in the mean time, to watch her like a hawk.

* * *

Aang was laying on the infirmary bed while Simon stitched up his leg, glaring at the ceiling. Everyone else seemed perfectly happy in this new, strange world, but Aang felt _alone._ He didn't know how to get home, he didn't know where he fit in here, and he didn't know why no one else had a problem with these things. At least, he had thought, Katara or Zuko might take issue with being stuck in a foreign universe where no one they knew existed.

"You're awfully quiet," Simon said gently, not looking up.

"I'm just..." he started, and then sighed. "I want to go home, you know?"

The doctor nodded in a way that was a little _too _understanding. "I know," he replied fervently.

Aang glanced over to him. "Where's your home?" he asked, trying to sit up some without interrupting the doctor's work. Simon made an odd sound from the back of his throat and then took a deep breath.

"Osiris, originally. It's... a planet in the core," he explained, as though that meant anything to Aang either. "I... Well, River went to this government-sponsered Academy and..." he trailed off, like he didn't want to dredge up those memories. Aang caught something in his voice, though, and moved on it.

"Is that why she's..." he indicated with his hands, although he wasn't sure what, exactly, he was indicating. "They... hurt her?"

"Did experiments on her," Simon whispered, eyes blank like he was seeing a memory rather than what was in front of him. "Played with her brain. She's actually doing much better now than she was before," he said, and tried to smile. Aang stared in horror, understanding something of the magnitude of what had happened to River from the way Simon was talking and the look on his face. "Anyway," Simon continued, giving up the attempt to smile, "I... got her out. It took a lot of time, and money, and... Well, I can't go home. Ever. But," he said suddenly, on a brighter note, "she's safe now. They can't hurt her anymore. That's the important thing."

"That must have been..." Aang tried to make sense of it, but he couldn't. It was admirable, that Simon had given up everything he had to save his baby sister, and it made Aang's heart ache for the siblings. And, he thought, if Simon and River could survive out here after going through so much and leaving all they knew behind, then so could he. At least he had a chance of going home. "I'm sorry," he said sincerely. Simon shook his head.

"It's not your fault."

"No, but," he sighed, "in our world, it's my job to help people, to... keep the balance between the nations. I..." he rubbed his now-fuzzy head, "I wish I could have been here, or that you had someone here to do that, so that... those people wouldn't be able to..."

"It's all right," Simon said, although it was clear from his voice that it absolutely wasn't all right, "it's in the past now. River is safe, and she loves it here, so..."

"But what about you?"

Simon blinked. "I... I've gotten used to it. There are... positives," he said with a strained smile. "I didn't think much of it at first, but _Serenity _grows on you."

Aang nodded, uncertain. "At least the people are good. Well, most of them, anyway," he added, thinking of Jayne.

Simon finally smiled genuinely. "Yes, they are. Except Jayne."

Aang laughed.


	5. 201: an ocean of light

take my love, take my land, take me where i cannot stand  
i don't care, i'm still free  
_you can't take the sky from me_

episode two:  
**sihnon shuffle**

chapter one:  
(_an ocean of light_)

Sihnon was breathtaking from the air, and mind-boggling from the ground. Katara could do little besides gape, and even though she had spent the last landing clinging desperately to her brother and trying to block out all stimuli that might possibly tell her that she did, in fact, exist; this time, she was staring in awe from the bridge, still clutching Sokka in terror (and trying to ignore the now-persistent twitch in Mal's forehead) but unable to tear her eyes away from the planet.

From a distance, it was swirling ocher, reflecting glints of white light from the bright, all-too-near sun, like an ocean of ruby. By the time they passed the three moons (three moons! She wondered how powerful her waterbending would be on this planet!), the entire crew, minus Toph, were gathered on the bridge, just watching.

As they pulled in closer, the clouds parted to reveal a sparkling jewel of a city, a large, bustling metropolis with ships of all shapes and sizes swooping in to land. On the other side, beyond the city limits, beautiful landscape stretched as far as the eye could see, a series of rivers winding through hills and what might have been temples scattered across the Earth as if tossed carelessly by some bored god.

"Wow," she whispered, and Mal made a strange sound in the back of his throat.

"Yeah," he said shortly, "it's real pretty." Something in his tone made her turn; it was clear that the captain very much did not like Sihnon, and she wanted to know why. She glanced to Zuko to see if he might know anything, but he wasn't paying attention to her.

"We'll be landing in Lu'Wong," Wash told them, without taking his eyes off the onrushing ground. "It's the capital city. Inara said she'd meet us here with everything already packed in her shuttle."

"Good," Mal replied. "I'd like to get out of here without ever setting foot on land."

"What?" Katara squawked, and it came out so shrilly that she winced. "I mean, why?" she amended. "It's so beautiful..."

"It's a core planet," Zoe said, like that answered everything. Katara barely bit back an annoyed retort - obviously, core planets were prettier, nicer, and bigger than either of the places they'd been so far, so why did Mal and Zoe hate them so much?

"Can't we just...?" Kaylee pleaded, glancing at Mal. "I've never been to Sihnon. 'Nara says its the most beautiful planet in the 'Verse."

"I don't care," Mal said tightly. "We're not settin' foot on it, and that's that."

"You don't have to!" Kaylee cried, glancing between Mal and Zoe. "We could just stop here for a few hours, go explore the shopping district. 'Nara could show us around, and you and Zoe wouldn't have to get off the ship at all! Please, Cap'n?"

"_No_," he replied, but Wash raised an eyebrow.

"You know," he started, pulling up and landing easily on one of the docks, then relaxing and turning to his wife, "Sihnon _is_ known for its silk..."

"So we can buy some genuine Sihnon silk somewhere _else,"_ Zoe replied, smirking. "They export."

"Yeah, but there's nothing like seeing it in the real market," Kaylee said, eyes begging. "We got here a few hours early, anyway, 'Nara might not even be ready yet! We've got the time."

"Kaylee," Mal started dangerously, but then sighed. "We got enough Alliance trouble without runnin' around in their territory. We stay on the ship."

"Didn't you say that about Ariel?" Wash stage-whispered, earning a cuff on the back of the head from a very amused Zoe. "What? We could totally run a heist. It would be even more impressive than that hospital."

Katara's gut fell straight through the floor. She was _right!_ She turned to Zuko to gloat silently, but he was pointedly ignoring her.

"I could go for havin' money again," Jayne muttered, and Simon glanced at him.

"Cortical electrodes," he said apparently apropos of nothing, earning a confused look from Jayne (and Katara) and snickers from both Mal and Zoe.

"What?" Jayne asked, and Simon rolled his eyes.

"That would take a lot of planning, though," Zoe said. "We're only staying for a few hours."

"What's the rush?" Kaylee asked, looking pointedly at Zoe and ignoring Mal's ever-increasing annoyance. "We already sold that cargo on Whitefall, and we ain't had another job come up yet. This could be a good one. I think we still got most o' the parts from that ambulance cruiser Wash 'n I made. We could run it again, or somethin' similar... Without, um," she added, glancing at Simon, who shrugged.

"I don't really need to get into another hospital," he started, but Mal cut him off.

"You forgettin' somethin'?" he asked, glaring at Kaylee. "All our faces've been plastered over the cortex for the past month and a half, and you think we're just gonna be able to waltz into a hospital and steal a buncha meds?"

"We got new faces," Jayne offered, jerking a thumb in the direction of Katara, who blanched.

"Hey, now..." she said, holding up her hands. "I'm not getting involved in a heist."

"Besides," Aang cut in, looking a little confused, "didn't we plan to get off here?"

Everyone turned to him, as though suddenly remembering that. Katara wasn't sure how she felt about leaving at Sihnon. On the one hand, she was quite sure that she was in the hands of bad people who did bad things, but on the other hand, she would much rather be here to try and thwart whatever nefarious plans they were coming up with than dally around on a (really gorgeous) planet and leave them to their own devices. Besides, neither Suki nor Sokka looked at all prepared to leave, the former glaring at Aang with barely-restrained hostility.

"We still haven't really figured anything out," Sokka said. "I think it's best we stay with the crew for a while because, um," he looked around, "we should." It was obvious that he was unwilling to leave before he had at least learned how to pilot a spaceship from Wash, and Suki appeared bound and determined to stay on the ship, even if it meant locking herself in the walls or making a complete ass of herself.

"I wasn't saying we had to," Aang said, raising his hands in supplication, "I was just saying... That was the idea."

"It's up to you," Mal replied evenly, but Kaylee burst into the conversation.

"You payed more 'n enough to stay, though," she said, earning yet another glare. "All that gold 'n platinum'll cover your passage to just about every planet in the 'Verse."

"Thank you, Kaylee," Mal said sardonically, clearly wishing that she'd kept her mouth shut. Katara was beginning to suspect that either Kaylee had no sense of self-preservation or she was somehow related to the captain, because those were the only reasons that she would dare be so openly... well, not defiant, but needling. She had the feeling that if anyone else had tried to beg Mal into letting them do anything like go shopping on an Alliance planet, they would be keel-hauled.

"Well, I think we should stay, then," Sokka declared brightly. Wash raised a hand, as though sitting in a classroom.

"We still haven't decided about whether or not we can go shopping."

"Yes, we have," Zoe replied, raising an eyebrow. "The answer's no."

"I'll buy you a really nice silk dress," he offered, and then muttered something under his breath that only Zoe could hear (Katara suspected it had something to do with taking _off_ the really nice silk dress), and she smiled.

"What about me?" Mal asked in the same sardonic tone. It was obvious that he was both annoyed and kind of amused, which meant - she had learned - that he was in a (relatively) good mood, which was strange, all things considered. Then again, it was pretty hard to gauge the Captain's moods. "You gonna buy me a nice silk dress?"

"Yes," Wash replied quickly. "_Red _silk. I'll make sure it's something sexy, too, maybe with a slit up to _there..._"

"_There's_ an image I didn' need," Jayne grumbled, but Zoe laughed. And just like that, Katara finally understood Zoe and Wash's relationship - it was, thus far, the first time she'd seen the woman openly laugh like that, bright and happy. Usually, she just snickered under her breath or looked sort of amused.

"I've gotta get some parts for the engine," Kaylee said innocently, not looking at Mal. He closed his eyes, praying for patience, and then threw up his hands.

"If Inara is willing to show you _bai chi_ around the city, then I don't care. If you get caught by the Feds, though, I ain't springin' you."

Kaylee beamed, and bounced forward, kissing Mal on the cheek. "Thanks, Cap'n!"

He growled.

* * *

Sokka gaped.

That was the only possible word for it.

They met Inara right outside _Serenity_, right after she landed her shuttle. She had spoken with Wash over the comm-link, and apparently was perfectly happy to show the crew - and their new charges - around the city of Lu'Wong, even excited to do so. But none of that, not even hearing her voice on the other side of the room, had prepared Sokka for actually meeting Inara. He had been warned, of course, that she was what they called a "Companion," a term which meant nothing to him or anyone else, but which seemed to mean that they should not be surprised at what she looked like. He had thought that might mean she would look grungy and disgusting, maybe be uncultured or possibly diseased.

She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The only person who had ever come close was Princess Yue, and even she hadn't been _this_ kind of lovely.

She walked with a fluid grace, her red silk dress and knitted shawl fluttering behind her like a breeze. Her thick, black curls framed her face in just the right way, and when she smiled, it was warm and open and friendly and Sokka lost all coherent thought.

"Hi," he said bluntly.

"Hello," she replied gently, holding out her hand. "I'm Inara."

He stared. She had beautiful hands. He didn't know anyone who had hands that beautiful.

It was about this point that Toph started cackling.

* * *

"This is the market," Inara said, opening her arms expansively. Katara stared. Everything she had seen so far in this place had been unimaginably beautiful: homes draped in silk, breathtaking women wearing kimono of the sort she'd never seen before, lights of all colors glittering off of gorgeous buildings - but the market was another realm entirely. The bustle of the city streets reached a fever pitch here, with people spilling out of open doors, huge windows showing some of the most exquisite clothing and furniture and statues Katara had ever seen, lanterns (currently unlit in the light of morning) strung from building to building, restaurants with outdoor seating and the most delicious-smelling food she could imagine... It seemed that everything Sihnon had was gorgeous.

She was beginning to really resent Sokka and Suki for wanting to stay with _Serenity_, and she honestly couldn't understand why Inara would ever want to leave such a place.

"Oh, wow," Suki breathed, looking into a window and tugging on Kaylee's arm, "look at this."

"Ooh!" Kaylee replied, and they cooed over the stunning dress. Even Sokka peeled his eyes away from Inara for long enough to look. It was made of the clearest, deepest blue silk, with a full, layered skirt in two other shades of blue, and the bodice was dusted with small sapphires. It looked both unbearably gorgeous and obscenely expensive.

As though listening to Katara's thoughts, Inara said, "That's a little out of our price range, I'm afraid," with a small laugh. Kaylee smiled.

"Oh, I know, but it's amazing."

"Sihnon boasts some of the best clothing in the 'Verse," she replied, smiling broadly.

"So," Katara mused, catching up to Inara. "Why would you choose to travel around on _Serenity_ rather than stay here? I mean," she added hastily, even though Inara didn't seem offended, "nothing against _Serenity_, it's just... This place is amazing."

She smiled enigmatically. "I've found that, in my line of work, it helps to travel and meet clients where they are rather than ask them to come to me. It expands my base and gives the crew a sense of respectability that," she laughed lightly, "they sometimes lack."

"You can say that again," she muttered, not realizing that Inara could still hear her. The other woman laughed outright.

"But they're good people," she said. "I wouldn't travel with them unless they were."

This brought her up short; Inara was certainly well-to-do, and seemed very smart and very cultured, so if Inara said that Mal and the crew were good people, then she certainly had enough experience to base that judgment on. But from what Katara had seen, they _weren't_ good people. Maybe they acted different around Inara?

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed someone following them and grabbed Zuko's arm, jolting him backward and nearly knocking him over. "What?" he asked sharply, drawing the group's attention. Katara froze for a second and then steadied herself.

"I think someone's following us," she said in a low voice, and Toph tilted her head, furrowing her brow and trying to feel out the footsteps and heartbeats through the crowd. When her face relaxed, so did everyone else (except Inara, who didn't know, and Wash and Kaylee, who weren't used to it).

"It's River," she told them, and Inara looked at her strangely.

"How did you know?" she asked, but before Toph could answer, River caught up to them.

"You weren't supposed to leave the ship," Kaylee said, hands on her hips. River beamed.

"They keep the dragon bound here," she replied, earning the confusion of everyone.

"O... kay," Wash said, and shrugged. "Just don't run off, all right?"

They wandered through the market for almost an hour, mostly because Wash was apparently completely incapable of choosing women's clothing on his own and had to get everyone's opinion (and the shopkeeper's) about various styles, colors, and fabrics of the dress he had promised Zoe. While he, Inara, Kaylee, and Suki were poring over the merits of black versus red, and Sokka, Zuko, Aang, and Toph were arguing over whether or not they needed a set of lanterns to hang in the hallway between the passenger dorms and whether or not Mal would let them put them up even if they did decide to buy them, Katara decided that it was her job to watch River.

Luckily, the girl seemed placid enough, inspecting a shelf of trinkets with a look of utmost fascination.

"What are you looking at?"

She smiled. "So many stories," River muttered, as though that was a response. Finally beginning to get used to River's odd way of talking, though, Katara nodded.

"I know. I wonder what all these are - ooh!" she gasped, picking up a beautiful little nesting doll. "I had one of these when I was a little girl!"

River looked over to her and cocked her head. "Your father made it for you," she said.

"Yeah," she said, nodding and smiling nostalgically. "He carved it out of bone one winter when my mother was still alive. He wasn't much for art, but his best friend helped him add a bunch of designs and things. He even carved my name into the bottom of it, although that was more to keep Sokka from..." She trailed off, staring blankly at River. "How did you know?"

But River wasn't looking at the doll anymore. Her smile had faded, and she seemed even paler and smaller than usual. Katara looked around, but the group had moved on to somewhere else within the store (she could hear Sokka's vehement exclamations that hanging lanterns were perfectly good investments). Just as she was about to lead River back to them, however, the girl grabbed her hand in a vice-like grip and began pulling her off to the back of the store.

"Where are we - "

But now she was muttering to herself, repeating the same sentence over and over - _two by two hands of blue two by two hands of blue_ - and wasn't paying attention to Katara. In a desperate rush, she dragged her out of the back door and through an alleyway that was still more beautiful than anything on either of the planets she'd already been, breaking out into a dead run when they reached the street, still clutching Katara's hand in her powerful grip.

She looked around, trying to find the source of River's terror, or at least maybe see if the others had noticed their absence yet, and caught sight of two pale, tall men in suits with vivid blue gloves. Something within her went ice-cold - even though she knew nothing of this place or those men, the blank looks on their faces and River's all-encompassing fear told her that they were bad news.

Katara tried to pull them into a shop, hoping to lose their followers, but River shook her head and dragged her away, keeping to the crowded streets. They moved slower, but so did the tall men, so it must have been an acceptable trade-off. But they weren't heading back toward the docks; in fact, it didn't seem like River knew where they were going at all.

"River, we need to get back to - "

"No," she said fervently, "can't. They follow, they come and they follow and they - " she broke off into a desperate whimper.

"What if there are more of them?" Katara asked, trying to be reasonable through her irrational panic. "What if they surround us?"

River seemed to be thinking the same thing, and abruptly jerked her through an open door, into a crowded restaurant. The host bowed when they burst in and started to ask if they wanted a seat, but River refused to stop. Katara shouted an insincere apology after them as they bolted through the tables, nearly bowling over a waitress who cried out a long string of words in another language, and crashed into a swinging door, straight into the kitchen.

Several cooks looked up and started to say something, but they continued to rush, and when Katara glanced behind her again, she could see why. The tall men were gaining on them, already barreling toward the kitchen doors. River was whimpering, nearly crying by now, and shoved their way through the cooks trying to stop them.

She looked back again. They were only about ten feet behind them.

She didn't even think, just raised her free hand to one of the boiling pots of water - which reacted violently, thanks to the planet's three moons - and sent it, in a roaring, hissing cascade, right into the face of one of the men.

Swallowing her horror at what she had just done, she continued to follow River, thinking that surely that had gotten the two men off their backs, but when she glanced back again, the uninjured one was still following them, with that same blank look on his face. It was like he hadn't even seen his partner take a pot of boiling water to the face. This was when her cold dread crystallized into true, unrelenting terror. She hadn't been this scared since she and Zuko had faced Azula on the day of the comet.

Now, she caught up with River's pace, clutching the other girl's hand with equal force and all-but flying for the back exit. Into an alley, out into the streets again, not even pausing to glance at all the people they were shoving away and down and aside. The man was still following, barely ten steps behind them, almost close enough to reach out and grab them, which was what he looked like he was about to do. At almost the exact moment that Katara realized that they were going to be captured by this impossibly scary man, something flew out of a bar directly behind her and landed almost on top of him.

It was Zoe Washburne, beating the snot out of a completely random man.

Katara could reasonably say she had never been more surprised in her life. She barely paused to think, though, because a hand was gripping her arm and pulling her along - Jayne.

"_Gorramit_," he growled, "what the _hell _are you two gettin' up to?"

He didn't let them respond, instead dragging them at top speed back to the docks, leaving Zoe behind - and then Katara caught on. Zoe's fight had caused a bottleneck on the sidewalk, which the tall, scary man was caught right in the middle of. She had caused a diversion, giving them time to escape.

Unfortunately, this also meant that when the police broke up the fight, they arrested Zoe.

* * *

A/N: Guys, I'm so sorry. I've got up to part eleven of this written, I just keep forgetting to post it here. Forgive me? And review!


	6. 202: a pound of pressure

take my love, take my land, take me where i cannot stand  
i don't care, i'm still free  
_you can't take the sky from me_

episode two:  
**sihnon shuffle**

chapter two:  
(_a pound of pressure_)

Back on _Serenity_, the immediate chaos had faded into that peculiar pre-fight lull that Katara didn't like knowing as well as she did. By the time she and River had been dragged back to the ship, River was hysterical, screaming desperately about Zoe and blue and some mission that she had - forcing Simon to inject her with a sedative. He had stayed with her until she'd fallen asleep, and then been pulled away to pack a medical bag, "just in case things go further south than usual," Mal had growled.

Now, River was curled up on the catwalk, having violently opposed the concept of returning to her room for whatever reason, her head resting in Inara's lap. The older woman was sitting calmly, her face betraying no emotion as she watched Wash load a mess of weapons that seemed too big for him and Jayne explain the mechanics of a gun to Sokka and Zuko.

"It seems like you've all done this before," Katara whispered, knees drawn up to her chest as she watched Inara rhythmically smooth River's hair. Obviously, things were more complicated than they'd seemed, and she was missing some crucial part of the story. Inara nodded absently.

"Several times, in fact," she replied softly. "Never without Zoe, though..."

An uncomfortable silence fell, and finally Katara sighed. "Okay, what happened to River? What... Who were those men?"

"I don't..." Inara started, and then something dark passed over her face, maybe a bad memory. "We don't really know all the details. The Alliance... Well, they did things to her."

"What kind of things?" Katara asked, horrified - her thoughts had been that, since River and Simon were originally with the Alliance, maybe River had been captured by the Browncoats in that nasty war and been treated like, well, a prisoner of war. But if the _Alliance_ had hurt her...? Maybe Inara was wrong?

"You'd have to talk to Simon for the details," Inara said softly, glancing down at the small girl. "According to him, she was always very smart and somewhat, well, psychic." Here, she glanced to Katara with an apologetic smile. "I know how it sounds, but it's true. And the Government... experimented on her."

"Why?"

Now it was definitely a bad memory that crossed over Inara's face. "To make her into the perfect weapon," she whispered. "A telepathic super-soldier. Unfortunately," she added, as though this all wasn't already unfortunate enough, "there isn't any off button. She hears and feels the thoughts and emotions of everyone around her, no matter what."

Katara felt sick. That explained so much about River, and maybe even explained why she'd been so reluctant to leave the streets on their escape from the men with blue hands - the din of the city streets would drown out whatever horrible things those men were thinking. "But," she started, unable to wrap her mind around it, "why would the Government...? They seem so... I don't..."

"They're the Alliance," a voice from behind her said, and she turned to see Mal, coming from the interior of the ship, eyes clouded. "They think they can make people better, no matter what the cost."

"That's why you fought for the Independents?" Katara asked in a small voice. Mal didn't respond, simply pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders and walked down the stairs.

"Wash, Jayne, you other morons - no, Toph, you ain't comin' and that's _final_ - what?" He glared at Suki, who was standing stock-still, her fans clenched in her fingers.

"I'm coming."

"What're _you_ gonna do?" Jayne asked harshly. "Cool us off?"

Suki turned her coldest, most vicious Kyoshi Island Death Glare onto Jayne, who had the good sense to look disturbed. "I've spent my whole life training in several martial arts," she replied evenly. "You _want_ me on your team."

"I don't care," Mal cut in shortly. "She says she can take of herself, she can come along. Kaylee - " he added, looking to the wide-eyed mechanic. "I'm leavin' you in charge, you know your job. Toph, you and Aang keep on the lookout, make sure nobody but _us_ makes it through these doors. And where the _hell _is the doctor?"

"Right here. I've got a bag for you to take with you in case something goes wrong," Simon said, walking through into the cargo bay and clutching his bag.

"Good," Mal said, and then hit the button to open the doors. "Let's get my _gorram_ first mate back."

* * *

"Corporal Zoe Alleyne Washburne," Inspector Hal Corvin read off a sheet. "Fought under Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds during the war, did you?"

"Yes."

"Says here that you're a known accomplice of the man. That true?"

"You say you know."

He blinked. "You've got a long rap sheet, lady, and it doesn't help that you're implicated in the murders of two Alliance officers today."

"That so?"

Hal stared at the woman in front of him who, when faced with charges that would easily put her in prison for life - if not result in her execution - didn't seem even slightly bothered. In fact, she didn't seem even slightly _anything_, her face a mask of complete indifference. It was rather unsettling. "That _is_ so. You have anything to say for yourself?"

"No."

He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. "No? Not even a plea for a lawyer?"

She merely looked at him.

"You do know that by waiving your right to council, you - "

"I know."

He coughed. "All right. What are you doing in Sihnon?"

"None of your business."

He slammed a hand down on the table in front of her, but she didn't even flinch. "Listen, Corporal, I am a detective investigating the murders of two _very_ high-ranking Alliance officers, which _you're_ a prime suspect in. So, yes, it _is_, in fact, my business to know what you were doing on this planet."

She looked up at him and met his eyes, and it was quite possibly the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen - and he'd looked into the eyes of murderers and criminals of all sorts and sizes. It wasn't that she was crazy, or that she was angry, or that she was hiding some horrible pain behind her eyes. It was that she was looking at him with _literally _no emotion, none whatsoever. "Then I suggest you reevaluate your job, _sir_." Into that one, tiny word, she injected all of the venom and loathing that a human being could possibly express.

Yes, Hal had to admit, he was quite afraid of Zoe Washburne.

* * *

On the catwalk, in _Serenity's_ cargo bay, River twitched in her sleep and clutched convulsively at Inara's dress.

* * *

They hadn't strictly planned for this. The original idea had involved sneaking in as Alliance grunts and passing over some forged paperwork that claimed that Zoe was being transferred to another place, all the weapons being brought along in case things failed to go smooth.

Things had, predictably, failed to go smooth. That wasn't what they hadn't planned for - after all, on _Serenity_, plans going every which way of _wrong_ was more or less expected. No, what they hadn't planned for was to meet a full regiment of hired mercenaries on top of the standard police force guarding the prison complex.

It seemed that Mal's - and his crew's - reputation had reached Sihnon. Along with pictures.

Mal was starting to deeply regret his decision not to bring that little blind maniac with him.

"Okay," he said, leaning against a tree. "How do we get in there?"

"I vote we send one of these _hwoon dan_ in," Jayne growled, nodding toward Sokka, Zuko, and Suki.

"Yeah, that'll work," Sokka replied dryly. "Because we can _totally _pass for Alliance guys. Right."

"Better'n anythin' else."

"If I can get up onto the parapet," Suki said, examining the wall and taking stock of the guards there, "I can take out the guards and open the doors. Problem with that is, they'll know something's up and we'll lose the element of surprise."

"Maybe not," Wash muttered, joining Suki at her tree. "Maybe we can cause a diversion, get the guards to empty out through the main doors and find another way in." Mal glanced to the two of them. Wash, predictably, was showing absolutely zero signs of any kind of humor, though that was to be expected when his wife was currently in prison. But why was _Suki _so damned serious?

She shook her head. "We'd have to create a really big distraction..."

"How about a forest fire?" Zuko asked, and everyone turned to him. He was holding a large, dancing tongue of flame in his hand, and grinning maniacally.

* * *

Sokka had always known that Zuko was dangerous - after all, he'd been chased all around the world by the man years before. But there was something about seeing him standing in the middle of a raging blaze, the firestorm whipping his hair and his clothes around him in a furious whirlwind, face and body increasingly obscured by the dancing shadows and brilliant orange light that, frankly, scared the piss out of him.

Pressed up against the wall where they wouldn't be seen by the searchlights or the frantic guards rushing to get the fire put out, they waited for the majority of the guards and mercenaries to leave. They had, according to Wash, only a short window of time to get into the prison complex before the emergency response teams would arrive to control the fire, so they had to move fast. Suki, doing some crazy things with a length of rope that Jayne probably _still _didn't know she'd stolen from him, made her way up to parapet and made very short work of the guards left behind in the panic of the fire. She disappeared down a stairwell and they waited for several tense moments before she arrived at the door and opened it for them.

There was blood on her face, clothes, and fans, which she snapped shut with one sharp flick of her wrist. Jayne stared at her.

"The more I find out about you people, the more I like," he muttered.

When Mal nodded to him, Sokka turned and cupped his hands around his mouth, making a loud squawking sound, an attempt to imitate a bird. It sounded like a _dying_ bird, but that was okay because any bird in that fire _would_ be dying. A dark figure shot out of the trees and hit the ground just past the majority of the guards, landing with a roll and coming up with swords already in the bellies of the nearest two men to him. Jayne shouldered his gun to help Zuko out, but Sokka took the initiative and threw his boomerang. It narrowly avoided Zuko's head but not the guy behind him who was about to shoot him, and then returned to Sokka's hand, slimy with blood.

"Eugh," he grumbled, and wiped it off on Suki's already-bloody shirt. She rolled her eyes.

"Thanks," Zuko gasped, catching up with them and putting out a small blaze on his pant-leg. "I didn't see that guy." He looked around. "Where's Mal and Wash?"

"They went on ahead. We gotta catch up."

"No one's staying behind to keep this open?" Suki asked, having not been briefed on the mission. Sokka shook his head.

"No, our exit strategy is a little flashier."

"Jus' be hopin' that Kaylee can fly the ship," Jayne growled, and horror settled in Suki's gut.

"That's our plan? Have Kaylee fly the ship into a prison complex?"

Jayne snorted. "_No_. She's gonna fly it _above_ the jail, so we can get on from underneath."

"Oh," Suki replied faintly. "That's so much better."

* * *

River whimpered and snuggled closer to Inara, her knuckles white around the Companion's skirt.

* * *

"She's stone-cold," Hal said. His partner, Adi, shook her head.

"There's no way. She's gotta break somehow. Did you hear anything back from the feds?"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "They were tight-lipped about it, of course. Said that they were sending their own investigators to look into the murders. Can you believe it? Two guys are killed right on Lu'Wong's streets in broad daylight, and they're gonna pull jurisdiction on us. Nevermind that _we're_ the ones who had to restrain the woman. You think they're even gonna comp Wen for the broken leg she gave him?"

"Not a chance," Adi replied, crossing her arms. "God, she isn't even _moving_. How do you think someone gets that way?"

"Her record says she was in the Battle at Serenity Valley," Hal said, and understanding bloomed on Adi's face.

"Well, that makes sense. Browncoat, I presume?"

"Oh, yeah. You haven't heard of her?"

She turned. "No, I haven't. Should I?"

Hal shrugged. "Maybe. It hasn't really affected us, but I've got a feeling it will." He nodded over to the table, where Washburne's - and Reynolds's - files were laid out. "She was one of the _luh suh_ behind that Miranda broadwave."

"_This_ chick?" Adi asked, surprised. "Wow... We caught a _big_ fish today, didn't we?"

* * *

Suki was not enjoying the bevy of _delightful_ flashbacks that being in a prison entailed. It helped to take out her second-hand rage on the guards and mercenaries who were standing between her and Zoe's safety, but even picturing Azula's smirking face or Ty Lee's _stupid_ grin wasn't helping enough.

The prison was strangely claustrophobic, in that weird way that the Fire Nation palace had been claustrophobic - even though it was, apparently, designed to be bright and austere, all the polished marble and gleaming metal in the world couldn't erase the shadow of death and torture that clung to the walls. She hated it deeply and passionately, and she wanted nothing more than to get this over with as fast as possible so she could get back to the comforting dirt and grime and _hum_ of _Serenity_.

They made their way through the stark white halls, passing door after door, all metal, with automatic locks and a single small opening at about eye level. Wash and Mal were checking each door to see if Zoe was inside, while Jayne and Sokka took the lead and she and Zuko held the back. This part was, she had already decided, the worst. Most of the guards had been drawn by the commotion outside, and so the walls were eerily empty and echoing with their footsteps and the far-off shouts of other prisoners, which made her tense and irritable. She would rather just face their enemies.

"We're gonna have to find a map," Sokka whispered, shouldering one of the guns he had pilfered from the locker on _Serenity_. "There's no telling how many cells they are, or even if she's in one of them."

"He's right," Wash replied curtly, jerking the slide closed on a door. "Where can we find one?"

"Look for the guards' break room," Zuko offered, and Suki remembered - oh yeah, he had done this before, too.

"I got a better plan," Jayne started, but Mal cut him off.

"No, we're not kidnapping a guard and forcing him to tell us where she is. The map idea's good, let's go." Mal seemed about as irritable as Suki felt, which was something of a comfort - Jayne was clearly enjoying himself, Wash was downright pissed off, Sokka was in full-on the-plan-guy mode, and Zuko was utterly calm. At least she wasn't the only one who was getting antsy.

In the distance, she caught the sound of sirens, and sighed. "There's our cue. Screw this."

Without another word, she bounded forward and took off at a dead run through the halls, ignoring the protests of the entire group behind her. Sure, Sokka and Zuko had infiltrated the Boiling Rock, and Mal, Jayne, and Wash knew this world better than she did, but she had actually _been _to prison. Been a prisoner of _war_, in fact, had been the very favorite prisoner of the most bloodthirsty and crazy princess she'd ever heard of. In her time in the Boiling Rock, she had become very, _very _well acquainted with the mechanics of jails, guards, and wardens, and she also knew about a thousand different ways to fail at an escape attempt.

_This_, Suki could do.

She heard the shout ahead of her before she saw the guard, her fans snapping open in a motion so familiar she didn't even have to think about it. In one move, she leaped into the air and slit the man's throat before he could get out any further warning, and then used his falling body as leverage to reach the ceiling. Her fingers slipped between the tiles and she pulled the rest of her body up behind her, so she was laying flat on her back, on the ceiling.

_One... Two... Three..._ The other guard reached to his partner's side, and didn't have a chance to even register what was happening before Suki descended on him.

If she knew anything about anything, they would be interrogating Zoe. Katara had admitted to throwing boiling water on one of their followers, and it was likely that the other had been killed by Zoe's violent diversion. Interrogation usually meant ground floor, or possibly below it - the most secure place to take your scary potential murderers, especially in a world where people regularly flew around in airships. She snatched the keys off of one of the guards, bolted into the stairwell and vaulted the railing, landing on the tiles below in a roll, and immediately made her way into the hall and over to the nearest corner to hold up for the next round of guards.

She also knew guards, from her time in the Boiling Rock - they would travel in either twos or threes, depending on the sort of inmates that surrounded them. Judging from the shouts and banging on the doors she could hear echoing from down the hall (below the one where everyone else was still standing, although she hoped that they had at least started to do _something_), she was moving toward the more violent offenders, which meant more guards.

That was quite all right with her. She had her fans, two pistols, four grenades, and over fifteen years of martial arts experience. She raced down the hallway, sheathing her fans and, in the same movement, unholstering her pistols, and rocketed through the intersection, pulling the triggers as she went, but - _shit._

Where the _hell _was that safety button Jayne had shown her?

...Now she was slightly less confident.

* * *

Toph looked around sightlessly. "A small ship just landed," she cried, standing up. "Right beside us."

Three seconds later, River screamed.


	7. 203: got a secret

take my love, take my land, take me where i cannot stand  
i don't care, i'm still free  
_you can't take the sky from me_

episode two:  
**sihnon shuffle**

chapter three:  
(_got a secret_)

"What in the _hell_ - " was all Mal managed to say, before disintegrating into violent cursing. Zuko blinked at the place Suki had been seconds before. Beyond the hall she had disappeared into, there was a short, clipped shout, the sound of running, the _snap_ of a door closing, and then silence. He glanced at Sokka and then they both took off running, rounding the corner and seeing two dead guards laying on the floor, throats cut by Suki's razor-sharp fans.

It hadn't even been a minute since the sirens had started. Sometimes, Zuko thought, Suki was downright terrifying.

Mal composed himself - or, well, something close to composure, though his face still betrayed a fury that Zuko hadn't previously thought possible - and motioned to Jayne and Wash. "Jayne, take Sokka and scour this floor for either Zoe or the other girl. Wash, Zuko, same thing, upstairs."

"And you?" he asked. Most likely, Suki had taken the flight of stairs heading _down_, since they were the most readily accessible, so he wondered why Mal was wasting their time and splitting them up to search the places that she probably hadn't gone to.

"I'm going downstairs," Mal replied coldly.

* * *

Suki leaned against the wall, using the mirrored finish of one of her fan-handles to see beyond the corner. Four guards, all on high alert, coming at her. On the one hand, her attempt at awesome ass-kicking had failed so spectacularly that it almost wrapped around to success, but on the other hand, the guards _had_ heard something suspiciously like a person careening through the intersection and were now coming to inspect the sound.

She had maybe fifteen seconds before they descended upon her. Not enough time to re-learn guns, and she sure as hell didn't trust herself with the grenades. She evaluated the odds: four on one, with an untold number of guards lurking around any and possibly _all _other corners. She was armed with her two short-range fans and whatever else she might be able to wrestle from the arms of her enemies. Bad odds. She'd faced worse, true, but she hadn't exactly come out on the winning end of those fights.

Ten seconds. She glanced around for a last-ditch weapon, and then remembered the keys on her hand.

Behind her, the prisoners banged on their doors, demanding to know what was going on outside. The cells all had those automatic locks, kind of like the ones Kaylee had shown her on _Serenity_, which meant that somewhere, there was an automatic _un_lock function, the key to which she was surely holding in her hand. Find that, she thought, and solve all _kinds_ of problems.

She gripped her fans and prepared to take on the four guards. She would have to move fast, to keep them quiet. Ever-so-softly, she stood up and braced herself against the wall. With a high enough kick and a couple of good tosses, she could probably take out three of them in the first moment. If she timed her landing right, she could come down on the final guard and silence him immediately.

It wasn't a great plan, but it was all she had.

Five seconds.

* * *

"Yes, but - "

"Do _not_ engage the subject," the man said. Hal glared through the screen at him.

"We're investigating a murder. We _have_ to talk to her."

"She has been in the company of Tam for almost a year. There's no telling what she might know."

Hal resisted the urge to find a cigarette or, failing that, something a little harder from the confiscated drugs locker. He neither knew nor cared who River Tam was, besides the fact that she had a bounty on her head that would pay for his early retirement, and he sure as _hell_ didn't know why this all meant he couldn't interrogate his suspect. "I'm sorry, but the law states - "

"This is _above_ the law."

Hal blinked.

Now, he was intrigued.

* * *

"River!" Katara and Inara both cried at the same time while Toph and Aang assumed bending stances. The girl's eyes were wide with sheer panic, and she was babbling something about twos and hands and blue - and _oh no there were _more _of those men?_ And no doubt they were coming right here to pick her up while the rest of the crew was out rescuing Zoe.

Katara looked around the cargo bay. No water to be seen, though there was always water in the air. Not much. Not enough.

Three moons meant extra-powerful bending.

River turned to her, eyes pleading _don't let them get me_, and Katara knew she couldn't let the girl down. River had come to her, wanting to _learn_, and she had smiled and joked and tried to teach her first aid, and they had stood in that shop and discussed _dolls_ of all things, and River had pulled her through the crowds on the street, never letting go, even for a moment, even when it might have meant a cleaner escape for herself. Katara _couldn't_ betray that.

"Only two coming this way," Toph muttered, hand on the floor. "Walking. That's weird."

"They don't need any more," River breathed.

Katara closed her eyes.

* * *

Mal all-but leaped down the stairs and hit the hallway at a dead run, either to save Suki's life or kill her himself, but when he reached the intersection, all he found were four bodies, laying one on top of the other, throats slashed cleanly, in a pool of blood. No sign of Suki.

Had the situation not been really _gorram_ delicate, he might have taken the time to admire her handiwork, or at least yell a few choice curses, but instead he had to keep moving, keep hunting for Zoe. Suki could take care of herself, that much was obvious, and he wasn't going to leave his first mate to rot in prison while he hunted down a bloodthirsty maniac with a pair of fans.

_Fans._ Of everything he'd seen since taking on these crazy new passengers, that probably had to be the weirdest, and that included scarface wielding fire like a gun.

He stepped over the bodies of Suki's latest victims and tried to decide which direction might take him to Zoe. Now, he thought, would be a really good time to have a _map._ But no. That little _si pi yan_ with the stupid fans had screwed up that plan royally. Usually, he might have admired her initiative, but right now, Zoe was somewhere in prison and he was running out of time to find her and he was absolutely _not_ in the mood to deal with _any_ changes to his pretty straightforward plan.

Growling under his breath about _cao ni zuzong shiba dai_ (directed at, of course, Suki, but also at the Alliance in general), Mal picked a direction at random and ran.

* * *

Zuko fumbled uselessly with his gun, wondering why he was even bothering with it. He looked around at the guards and mercenaries that he and Wash had inadvertently walked straight into - a group of six fully-armed men, all very quickly getting over the shock of intruders - and decided to, as Suki had said, _screw this._

He glanced at Wash, who was already raising his weapon. There was no way the two of them would be able to take out six armed men in a fight like this.

It was right about now, he thought, that he could really use a cup of tea - and then he cursed his uncle under his breath. And _then_ he breathed a jet of fire.

On the plus side, he had successfully thrown their opponents so utterly off their guard that he and Wash now had time to _not die_, but on the down side, the terrified and painful screams of six men, all in various states of _being on fire_, were certain to draw an awful lot of attention. Wash glanced at him, nodded, and then began shooting.

* * *

Gunfire. Suki cursed under her breath. That was bad news, bad for her, bad for Zoe, bad for everyone. Distant echoes of shooting and screaming floated down from above her while much closer shouting came from every direction around her - things like _what's going on?_ and _get the warden!_ - bad, bad, bad.

Suddenly, a door to her right burst open and three men spilled out, running forward and stopping dead when they spotted her. A single moment passed, and then she was moving, fans out, into a whirling attack that would hopefully at least throw them off their balance. She managed to cut one of the men across the chest, but all three were pulling out their weapons and preparing to shoot her. Time for desperate measures.

She lunged forward and grabbed the injured man, punching him hard in the gut and wrenching his gun from his hands. It was large and unwieldy, and she didn't trust herself with using it properly, so she used it instead as a bludgeon, hitting the guard right in the open gash she had given him, and then used him as shield while she backed into the room they had just fled from. She chanced a quick glance behind her - it was empty, thank the spirits, and had a table in the center and a bunch of blinking lights and video screens set up around the room. She would have to take her chances.

"Don't shoot," she said dangerously. "Or you and all your friends die." The men all froze, no doubt wondering who this crazy girl was, and what she wanted. She jerked her head behind her. "Inside, all of you. Hairy, there," she nodded to the ugliest of the bunch, whose arms were covered in thick, dark hair, "shut and lock the door behind you."

"What do you want?" the injured man wheezed, struggling against her grip. Abruptly, she shoved him against his two friends and used her newest weapon to hit him against the temple as hard as she could. Unfortunately, this was a little too hard.

She jumped back, startled, as the man's head cracked open and he fell to the floor, convulsing. The two other guards jolted into action and rushed towards her, so she dropped the gun and ripped out her fans just as a sharp, vicious, nigh-unbearable pain tore through her thigh. It was almost enough to drop her.

Almost.

One of her fans flew out of her hand and embedded itself in Hairy's throat while her other went straight for the other guard's eyes. She didn't hesitate, moving straight from the face to the throat, cutting off his scream of pain before it could even form. Now she was alone in the small, locked room with the three messiest kills she'd probably ever made, her thigh was a torrent of blood and _agony_, her clothes were ripped and stained well beyond salvation, and - worst of all, perhaps - one of her fans was bent.

Suffice it to say, Suki was _pissed off._

She tore one of the guards' shirts up and formed it into a makeshift bandage, knotting it tightly over the bullet hole, and then limped over to the video screens, hoping and praying to all of the gods and spirits and even Malcolm _fucking_ Reynolds, that she might have found _something_ useful. And there, on one of the small screens, was a slightly fuzzy image of Zoe sitting, handcuffed, at a table. She sighed in relief and cast about for an identifier, something that would tell her where the feed was coming from.

There it was, labeled right underneath the video, but it was in another language.

She resisted, admirably, the powerful desire to scream expletives until her throat collapsed. "Okay," she muttered to herself. "Gotta find a way to talk to Mal."

She didn't have any of the fancy links that Wash, Mal, and Jayne were wearing, although there was an intercom... But that would be a terrible idea, and would merely draw attention to them and to Zoe. She could always give some kind of hint in a code, but that was more Sokka's specialty - hers was hitting enemies until they stopped hitting back.

"Plan B, then," she muttered, and looked for the floor's manual lock override - there, on another panel underneath some other video screens. This gave her pause: those three guards had been in this room before, right? And she could clearly see at least some of the halls she had used to get here, so why hadn't they used the knowledge that was obviously open to them? An ominous fear rose in her gut. Only reason to do something like that was if you were leading someone into a trap. It seemed like they'd survived thus far because she, Zuko, and presumably Sokka had _not_ been expected.

The already really, monstrously, impossibly bad situation just continued to get worse.

"Oh, well," she whispered, and began trying keys in the manual override. The seventh one gave a satisfying _click_, and she heard a horn sound out in the halls, followed by the metallic _chunk_ of every door on the floor simultaneously unlocking and opening.

It was one of the most important rules she had learned in the war: if everything else failed, cause as much chaos as possible.

* * *

The curses that subsequently flew out of Malcolm Reynolds's mouth were quite possibly the most vile words that had ever been spoken by a human being on any planet or any universe, ever.

* * *

Aang held his staff at the ready while Toph stayed low to the ground, both to listen to the earth and prepare for a fight. He didn't know who was coming, but River's panicked scream was still ringing in his ears, and he did know that when someone like River panicked, things were _bad_. It was kind of like seeing Toph cry - it only happened when everything had gone to hell and there was no chance whatsoever of salvaging anything.

So he clutched his staff tightly and watched. Before long, two men in suits seemed to materialize out of the darkness, one of them pulling out a small object, no larger than a pen. He held it out in front of him, and Aang didn't know why, but that _scared_ him. Without thinking, he attacked, surprising the man with a burst of wind that knocked the pen object out of his hand, and it went skittering across the floor. The other man didn't stop, and, in fact, pulled out one of his own. He glanced at Toph, prepared to unleash holy hell on the two men, when all of a sudden, they froze in place.

"Who are you?" Katara asked coldly, and he turned. She was gliding down the stairs like a vengeful spirit, watched by a shocked Inara and River, hands outstretched in front of her. "Why are you after River?"

The men didn't answer, but glared at her with shock and hatred.

"Katara?" Toph whispered. The closer Katara got, the more obvious it became that she hated what she was doing. Tears glistened in her eyes and her face was pale, but she didn't waver, not even a little bit.

"Answer me," she demanded, in a low voice. "I have full control of all of your bodily systems. You don't want to _imagine_ the pain I will put you through if you don't tell me who you are and why you're here _right now._"

"They're from the Academy," River said dreamily, from directly behind Katara, who, to her credit, didn't flinch.

"We're here for River Tam," one of the men said unnecessarily, forming the words like they were causing him physical pain.

"Well, you can't have her," Toph insisted, standing up and crossing her arms. Aang, keeping his eyes trained on the two men in Katara's thrall, walked over and picked up the small object that he had knocked out of one of the men's hands. It was a cool, thin rod of metal, with a button near the center, and it looked like the two ends could pop out. He considered pressing the button, but thought the better of it - in his short time on _Serenity_, he had already learned well the lesson of not pushing any buttons unless you were _very _certain what would happen when you did.

Luckily, he happened to be staring at two people who could tell him what it did. "What is this?" he asked roughly, holding out the object. River's eyes went wide and then she turned away, hands stuffed in her ears.

Neither of the men spoke. Katara gritted her teeth. "I'm not going to sit here and play twenty questions with you. Either answer him or answer me, but I want an explanation _now_." She twisted her hands and both men convulsed, falling against the floor in what had to be agony. After a single moment, she brought her hands up again and held them up like a marionette, blinking tears out of her eyes. "Why are you after River?"

"To return her to the Academy," one of the men said, in that same pained tone.

"Not good enough," Katara growled, and twitched her hands so that their whole bodies jerked. "Answer me!"

"You don't want to do this, little girl," the other man told her, face blank of emotion. It was downright eerie. "You're crying."

"I'd rather do this forever than let you take River," she whispered. "Why can't you just leave her alone?"

They started laughing then, in unison, a harsh, mirthless laugh that was undoubtedly the scariest thing Aang had ever seen. Toph blinked, and finally had enough, bolting out the door and bringing enough rock in to encase the two men up to their mouths in stone. Allowed to relax, Katara's shoulders slumped and she crumpled to the floor. River, on hands and knees, crawled over to her and pulled her into a tight hug.

"More coming, faster, lots of them," Toph cried, hands shaking. "Aang, tell Kaylee and Simon to get us out of here!"

He turned to the pedestal where he knew the comm-link was, but he didn't know which button would do what. Desperate, unnerved, and stressed-out, he just started jamming buttons at random. The airlock closed, and then opened again, and then the doors closed, and then finally Kaylee's voice floated over the intercom.

"_Everything all right down there?"_

"No!" Aang shouted, holding down what he dearly hoped was the transmit button. For once, he was in luck.

"_What's happening?_"

"Did you not _see_ the ship that touched down like ten feet away from us?" Toph shrieked, strangely frightened. That worried him. The only reason Toph would be freaking out like that was if there were more blue-handed men coming or hordes of men coming, period. He presumed the latter. And with Katara exhausted and drained from blood-bending, and with all the real gun-hands off the ship, it was up to Toph's metal-bending - which she seemed unwilling to use, probably because of _Serenity_'s intricate design - and possibly earth-bending if she could get enough of it to use, his airbending, and whatever River and Inara might be able to do. Against lots of trained soldiers with guns. _Really_ bad odds.

"_No!_" Kaylee cried, "_I didn't - nothing's coming up..._"

"Look out the window, _gorramit!_" Toph screamed. "Use those _eyes_ you people take for granted!"

"Toph, stop panicking," Aang said, trying to soothe her.

"I am _not_ panicking!" she replied. "If Kaylee doesn't get us in the air, though, you will _see_ me _panicking!_"

"_I'm working on it!_" Kaylee yelled through the intercom, and then everything went silent. For a long, horrible moment there was no sound but the oncoming footsteps and Katara's soft sobs, and then they rose shakily into the air. As they rose, Inara walked unsteadily down the stairs and placed a hand on Katara's shoulder.

"What will we do with them?" she asked, nodding to the two men. Aang had to give her credit: she was taking everything remarkably well.

"I say we chuck them out the door," Toph replied softly, but Aang shook his head. "Twinkletoes, this isn't the time for - "

"They might know something," he said sharply, cutting her off. "About this Academy." Across the room, Katara, River, and Inara all looked up at him, and he shrugged. "If there are more people out there being... hurt, then I don't want to sit here and let it happen."

"Mal won't go along," Inara said.

"He doesn't have to," Aang whispered.

* * *

A/N: And thus we reach the thrust of the plot. One of the things I wanted to play with was Aang's character in particular, being thrown into this highly cynical universe where he suddenly doesn't have his Avatar powers and his idealism is, at best, scorned - and him dealing with it and growing and using it to help. I imagine that Aang would not react well to the idea of the Academy, and would, well, do what he wants to here: form a strike force to go in and rescue the people trapped there. Whatever faults Aang may have, it can't be said that he isn't compassionate; indeed, his compassion is one of his greatest strengths as a character. Also, juxtaposing Aang's idealism and compassion with Mal's cynicism and his own version of nobility is, quite frankly, a lot of fun, which you'll see more of in the coming parts.

Also, the Chinese translations from this chapter, courtesy of Wikipedia's article on Chinese profanity:

_si pi yan_ - damned asshole  
c_ao ni zuzhong shiba dai _- fuck your ancestors to the eighteenth generation


	8. 204: see the sky

take my love, take my land, take me where i cannot stand  
i don't care, i'm still free  
_you can't take the sky from me_

episode two:  
**sihnon shuffle**

chapter four:  
(_see the sky_)

Suki had been in pain before. She'd been tortured, she'd been beaten up, she'd been burned, she'd even once taken a very thin knife to her palm. Pain was, regrettably, very familiar to Suki.

This was her mantra, what kept her going through the horrible pain lancing up and down her thigh every time she shifted even a little bit against the bullet (she swore she could _feel _exactly where it was in her leg and _oh _it was not enjoyable) - she knew, consciously, that she had been through worse. This had nothing on some of the tortures Azula had come up with.

It was not helping because, in spite of the fact that she'd felt worse before, _it still really hurt._

Instead of focusing on the searing pain, she focused on trying to learn her weapons properly. It would do her a lot of good to have some ranged weapons, and she could even steal the guns off of the dead guards - might even use them as a bartering chip to keep Mal from murdering her for running off on her own. She took a few extra moments to scribble down a rough sketch of the identifier underneath the video showing Zoe, and then a few more moments to familiarize herself with the weight of the guards' big guns. They were heavy, meant for raw force rather than agility or stealth, which made them more of a hindrance than a help to Suki.

Still, considering how many suddenly free, if very confused, prisoners were wandering the halls at the moment, she figured she should keep them around. She took a tentative step out of the room, arms full of guns, and was almost bowled over by a wide-eyed man wearing handcuffs.

"I've got a deal for you," she said loudly, grasping him by the shoulder and holding up one of the giant guns. "I give you this, if you tell me where this is," she told him, showing him the sketch of the word. The man stared at her blankly for a long second, shrugged, and took the paper.

"Down this hall, take a left," he growled, "You'll see a couple o' stairs. Go down them. There are two doors on the left - one's the examination room, the other's the actual interrogation room. Don't know what you want there."

"Doesn't matter to you. Have a gun."

He grinned, showing off his terrible oral hygiene. "Thanks, lady. You don't look familiar..."

"I'm not from around here," she replied, matching his grin, "but I know the type."

"What'd you do time for?" he asked, possibly hoping to con her out of something else, or maybe something _else_. She wasn't overly concerned.

"Prisoner of war," she told him evenly, and his grin vanished abruptly.

"I'm sorry," he said earnestly, and she shrugged.

"It's in the past, now. I'm just helping out my comrade this time."

"Your comrade being questioned?"

"That's right."

"How's this sound?" he offered, raising an eyebrow. "I'll get you to the room and get the guards outta your way, if you give me those keys."

She smiled. "Once I've freed my friend, they're all yours."

* * *

"Okay, now, things are starting to suck," Sokka said, watching in horror as prisoners flowed up from the stairwell, followed by the panicked shouting of guards and random gunfire from above. "What do we do?"

Jayne grinned.

* * *

"_Cap'n? We've got problems_."

"Well, who the hell _doesn't?_" Mal shrieked into the radio.

"_What's going on on your end?" _Kaylee replied, shocked.

"I'm swimmin' in gorram prisoners, and I ain't got a _shee-niou_ clue where that _ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng_ Suki has run off to! _What_ is going on?"

"_Oh. Um. Those men, the ones from the Academy, huntin' for River? They showed up._"

"_Baojuhua!_" Mal spat, pissed off beyond all reckoning, and about half a second from shooting the hell out of everything in sight. "Tell me you took care of them!"

"_They're subdued!_" Kaylee cried. "_But they're here, just... so you know. And I ain't very good at flying _Serenity..."

"Just start comin' this way. We'll meet you!"

"_Okay!_" she shouted, sounding terrified. Which wasn't unreasonable, Mal figured, considering that he was deeply tempted to ram this radio into Suki's throat, assuming he ever _found _the idiot.

* * *

"The feds are coming to interrogate you themselves," Hal said, crossing his arms, hoping that this might convince the scary woman to give something up. Unfortunately, although not surprisingly, she didn't flinch at this either.

"That so?"

"Yes," he replied. "Now, you tell _me_ what you know, there's a chance I can get you off lightly. The feds, on the other hand, well..." He leaned back and shrugged for effect. "They're not exactly known for their kindness toward murderers."

"They ain't exactly known for their kindness, period," she said coldly. Hal almost flinched - definitely a Browncoat to the end. Not that he was especially surprised by this, either. But it would have been nice if the woman had shown even a little warmth or compassion towards something. Her file claimed that she was married - but that had to be a typo, or a joke, or _something_, because the idea of this woman being _married_ was downright insane. Unless she'd tricked him into it, black-widow style, so she could kill him later. He would not, under any circumstances, put such a thing past Zoe Washburne.

"Listen, lady, I'm trying to help you - "

"No, you aren't," she cut him off succinctly, raising an eyebrow. He came up short, hoping for some really clever answer to jump up and overtake his tongue, but nothing came.

"I'll be more helpful to you than the feds will."

"And that's supposed to convince me because?"

"I can get you a shortened sentence."

"But you won't."

He was just about to come up with some new, better, way to convince this woman to freaking _talk_ already, but then a young woman in strange clothes, with blood splattered across her face, hair, and body, wearing a tight, blood-stained bandage on her thigh, burst through the door, an overlarge gun in her hand. Hal reached for his weapon, but Washburne took that moment to move, lunging across the table and tackling him, pinning him to the ground, snatching his weapon out of his hand and holding it to his head.

"Where's the captain?" Washburne asked, seemingly to thin air. The new girl looked around.

"I'm not sure. I split up. He was taking too long."

Washburne stopped, and then glanced to the girl, and then - horror of horrors - she laughed. "He's gonna kill you."

The girl shrugged. "I got him some guns to make up for it. And I found you, so, we're kind of even, right?"

"We'll see about that," Washburne replied, and then pistol-whipped Hal.

* * *

"Why are there prisoners?" Wash asked blankly, wading through what seemed like an ocean of people, making for the massive bulk of a man that was busy punching his and Sokka's way through the crowd. "When did prisoners enter the equation?"

"Well, if you want to get technical," Zuko replied, and received a glare. "I don't know!"

In front of them, Jayne let out a whoop of pure joy, and a grungy-looking man hit the far wall. "This was a terrible idea. Whose idea was this?" Wash kept going, frustrated with the lack of Zoe and the sudden complication to the plan.

Zuko managed to catch up with a horrified Sokka, who looked at him and then back at Jayne. "He's like a walking tank!" Sokka shouted. "I'm pretty sure he broke a man in half!"

"At least he's on our side. Which way do we go?"

Sokka shook his head and shrugged. "I have no idea! This plan has gone to hell!"

Violent cursing wafted over the heads of the crowd, and Zuko managed to catch the briefest glimpse of Mal, storming toward them from the stairwell. "Well, this gets better and better," Zuko muttered, and then turned to Wash, who was clearly losing what little patience he had left. "We have to find Zoe!"

"How?" Sokka replied, flattening against the wall as the guards began to try and force their way through the crowd making a dash for the exit. "We've got guards incoming, mercenaries shooting at random, prisoners everywhere, and no ideas!"

"You tell me! You're the idea guy!"

"_I _am stressed-out!"

"Mal?" Wash cried as the captain reached them. "What do we do?"

Mal let out more cursing. "I don't know. Kaylee's bringin' _Serenity_, they had problems o' their own. We might have to - "

"Captain!" a voice from behind shouted over the din, and there was Suki, dancing unsteadily over the heads of the prisoners, a luminous smile on her face which didn't seemed to dim at all at the look of utter homicidal _rage_ on Mal's face. "Mission success!" she cried, executing a lopsided flip and coming down hard at Wash's feet. Up close, blood and sweat was visible all over her body, and she winced in pain.

"_Success?_" he all-but screamed, but was cut off by Wash's cry of joy.

"Zoe!"

Zoe waded through the crowd, from the same direction Suki had come, a massive, Alliance-issue gun in her hand and an unfamiliar pistol on her hip. She met up with them and smirked. "Seems you were missin' me, sir."

"Good to see you, Zoe," Mal said tightly, and glared at the beaming Suki.

* * *

Inara's shuttle was warm and inviting, draped in silk and satin, richly decorated, with the cloying scent of incense drifting around the room, a calming salve to Katara's frayed nerves. Inara directed her to the bed, where she all-but collapsed, unable to even cry - more than attack those men, she had tortured them. She was no better than Hama, was she? While Inara made tea, River curled up on the bed next to her.

"Thank you," she whispered, and Katara looked up. The blind terror had passed, and the sedative was apparently reasserting itself, so River was calm and her smile sweet. "I know how much it hurts."

"I couldn't let them take you," she replied softly, her mantra somehow insufficient. River tilted her head.

"You don't even like me."

Katara almost lied to her, but then remembered that River would know. "It doesn't matter."

River watched her for a moment, and then turned over and appeared to fall asleep, leaving Katara somehow colder than before. A long, bitter moment passed, and then Inara sat down on the bed, touching her shoulder. "_Mei-mei_," she said, and handed her a teacup, "here."

"Thank you," she choked. The tea was sweet and light, tasting of honey and rose. She took a deep breath of the steam, and waited for the inevitable barrage of questions. Surprisingly, though, they didn't come.

"I love this ship," Inara said abruptly, a soft, sad smile on her face. Katara looked at her in confusion, but she just kept smiling. "Ever since I first saw it. There's so much heart, and warmth here, even when it doesn't seem like it. It's... become home, in more ways than I ever would have thought. Even moreso than my childhood home. The people here, they're so..." she trailed off for a moment, lost in thought, and then she turned back to Katara. "They believe. In something more than religion or ideals. They believe in people."

"Why are you telling me this?" Katara asked, and Inara sighed.

"Because it's important. Being here has taught me that people are... made up of questions," she said, waving a hand around expansively. "They're all gray, and... nothing about them is necessarily evil or necessarily good. Does that make sense?"

"I guess."

Inara gave her a look of utmost empathy, so understanding it hurt, and Katara almost burst into tears. "You're not evil," she insisted, placing a hand under her chin and tilting it up so she could meet her eyes. "You did what you had to do, in a bad situation. It doesn't make _you_ bad."

She stared for a half of a second, and then the tears welled up in her eyes. "I tortured them," she breathed.

"You saved River from enduring far worse."

"Two wrongs don't make a right," she whispered. "I could have stopped them without - without - "

"Did you have another option ready at hand?" Inara asked, laying a manicured hand on Katara's. "Did you have a better, quicker, safer alternative?"

"No, but I could have - "

"Everyone could have done something," the other woman insisted, voice soft. "There are always alternatives to any choice you make, but that doesn't make them all reasonable or possible, given the situation. You mustn't blame yourself." Katara stared down into her tea, hoping vaguely that the answers would rise up from it, or, better yet, she would suddenly be back home and all of this would be a bad dream.

"Why did you join the ship?" she asked distantly, more to fill in the silence than because she actually wanted to know.

"Because it's free," Inara replied, and left it at that.

* * *

"All right," Mal said, ignoring Suki completely, brushing off her peace offering - even though it was a damn good gun. Let Jayne take it, he didn't care. Sure, the girl did good, found Zoe without the help of any of them, and he could respect that. He could even respect her decision to release the prisoners because, hell, it was keeping the guards and hired mercs off their hands, giving them enough time to possibly survive this intact.

What Mal couldn't respect or forgive, however, was that she had done all of this without _telling him_. If she expected to be part of the team, expected him to take her seriously as an equal and an ally, then she had better learn how to open her _gorram_ mouth and explain her plans before running off on her own.

"Jayne, take the head. Make for the stairs, go," he barked, pushing through the knot of people to join Jayne at the forefront. Zoe stepped up with him and Zuko beside her, although he didn't appear overly concerned with his guns. Whatever, Mal figured. If the boy wanted to get himself killed, then it was out of his hands. He'd gone far enough for these idiots.

"This is gonna get nasty when we get up a few floors," Jayne growled, and Mal ignored him, pushing forward in both anger and impatience. Kaylee's distressed voice still rang in his ears, and no doubt _Serenity_ would make a lot of fuss flying around the prison for no apparent reason, especially with ERTs hanging around and mucking up the works. Time was of the essence, and they'd lost a lot of it in the chaos.

"Sir? Do we know how to get up to the roof?" Zoe asked, shouldering the giant gun and tagging a couple of uniforms waiting by the stairwell. They barreled in and took the moment of peace to reload and recoup. Zuko still hadn't touched his damn guns.

Mal hesitated at this: surely there was a roof access door, and it was just as surely locked. "Fan-girl," he said shortly, and Suki limped up, eyes hopeful, clearly praying that he was going to forgive her or, at least, not kill her. "You got those grenades?"

"Yeah," she replied tiredly, handing them over. "Couldn't figure out how to use them, so - "

"Right," he said, cutting her off, and she winced. "Make for the top, shoot anyone you see. Zoe," he said, tossing her one of the grenades, "use this on the roof access if it's locked."

"What are you doing?" Sokka asked, but didn't get a chance to hear a response, as Zoe grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him forward, up the stairs, following the rest of the crew. Mal reined in his desire to scream.

"There a _reason_ you ain't goin' along?"

Zuko shrugged. "I think you could use my help."

"With those guns you ain't touchin'?" The stupid fishing wire he was using was tangled up, and his already low reserves of patience just continued to get lower. Finally, with a growl that would have scared the piss out of a Reaver, he managed to get the wire into a straight enough line. It didn't have to be perfect. With his teeth, he tore off a length of wire a bit longer than the width of the door, and was just preparing to set up the trap when the damn door burst open. "_Ta made!_" he hissed, and then a wave of flame erupted from somewhere above his head, scaring the hell out of him and the guard trying to make his way through the door as well.

The man let out a shriek, and then toppled over backwards, just as Zuko vaulted over Mal's still crouched form and performed a beautiful _coup de grace_ with one of those swords he carried around, quick, easy, and even pretty bloodless. Calmly, Zuko returned to the stairwell, closing and barring the door behind him.

Mal blinked. "All right," he conceded, and then set up the grenade trap, so it would go off when the door opened next. It would have to do. At the very least, it would give them advance warning. "I admit, you people are good for some things."

"On occasion," Zuko replied, and Mal decided that he was probably his favorite of all the new people they'd met. Maybe Toph could challenge him for that title, but as it was, those were the only two he didn't want to throttle, punch, or outright kick out of the airlock, although he admitted a grudging respect for Suki.

"Let's meet up with the others."

* * *

A/N: Translations to Mal's cursing:  
_shee-niou_ - cow-sucking  
_ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng_ - frog-humping son of a bitch  
_baojuhua_ - literally "to explode the chrysanthemum," which is a euphemism for ass. More or less it translates to "fuck this in the ass" if I'm correct.  
_ta made_ - your mother's - !


	9. 205: the woods

take my love, take my land, take me where i cannot stand  
i don't care, i'm still free  
_you can't take the sky from me  
_

episode two:  
**sihnon shuffle**

chapter five:  
(_the woods_)

By the time they reached the roof, Suki's adrenaline rush had worn off, and she was pale with blood loss, starting to visibly fatigue. Sokka had slung his arm around her and helped her up the last flight of stairs, but she was fading out fast. He needed to get her to Katara, or maybe that doctor could do something. He didn't like the way she was slumped against him, though, not a bit.

"C'mon, Suki," he whispered, and she jerked slightly, gasping for breath. "Just a little further."

"Just a little further," she repeated faintly, and then appeared to draw on some deep reserve of strength, tightening her grip on his shirt and pulling herself up some. "Just a little further," she said again, firmer. Wash glanced at her, and then reached out and took her other arm, helping Sokka support her.

"Simon'll fix you up," Wash murmured, much friendlier now that Zoe was safe. "You'll be okay, just get there."

"All right," Zoe barked, gesturing to them in the gloom of the night, still dimly lit from Zuko's forest fire, "let's get out of the way so the captain can get through. Suki, here," she added, warmer, pointing at the wall beside the door, "take a seat."

"I'd rather stand," Suki slurred, clearly worried that if she sat down, she wouldn't stand up again, but Zoe shook her head.

"You need to get your weight off that leg. Push comes to shove, Jayne'll carry you up into _Serenity_."

"She's right," Sokka told her gently, helping her to the wall. She leaned against it, face contorting in pain, and then slid down to the ground, stretching out her leg slowly. Sokka sat down next to her and took her hand. "You're amazing, have I ever told you that?"

"Only all the time," she replied with a weak laugh.

"Seriously," he insisted, desperate to keep her talking, keep her conscious. "You're the most amazing woman I've ever met, and that's saying something, considering my Gran-Gran and Katara. You practically did all of this yourself! And you made it through all of this, even with that pain... You're incredible."

"Thanks, I guess," she whispered.

"Hey," Wash said suddenly, sprawling out on the other side of her, "what do you call a fish without an eye?"

She turned to him, confused, and Sokka thought he saw Zoe rolling her eyes. "What?"

"What do you call a fish without an eye?" he repeated, face earnest.

"I... I don't know," Suki replied.

"A fsssh," Wash told her eagerly, and - in spite of everything - Suki laughed.

"Don't encourage him," Zoe said blandly. "He's got a million of those."

"Ah, don't listen to her," Wash countered. Sokka elbowed Suki.

"So, this guy goes to a therapist, right? And he's like, 'I keep having these recurring dreams. First, I'm a teepee, then I'm a wigwam. It's driving me crazy!' he says. 'What's wrong with me?' And the therapist says," here he paused for effect, making sure that Suki and Wash were both paying attention. "'It's very simple. You're two tents.'"

Zoe snorted, and Wash snickered, while Suki rolled her eyes. "You've told me that one before."

"But you're smiling!"

"That's such a bad joke," she insisted, but she looked alive, and that was the important thing. Just then, as he was trying to come up with another horrible joke to tell her to keep her awake, Mal and Zuko burst through the hole where the door had been.

"Boy, we picked the good grenades, didn't we?" Mal quipped, and then looked to Zoe. "Kaylee comin'?"

"Yeah," Jayne answered, "and the sooner the better."

Mal looked over to the three seated at the wall. "You all right?" he asked, as though dearly hoping for a reason to kill them.

"Suki was shot," Sokka replied, bristling in defense of his wounded girlfriend. It wasn't often that he got the chance to rise up to defend Suki, and he was determined to defend the hell out of her. "She's lost a lot of blood."

"Where?" Mal asked curtly.

"Thigh," Suki replied, just as short.

"Artery intact?"

"She'd be dead if it weren't," Zoe answered for her, glancing up to the sky as _Serenity _started to come, shakily, into view. "Doc'll have to take a look when we get back."

Mal nodded slowly, and then appeared to make a decision. "Jayne," he said, jerking his head toward Suki, "you're going first. Carry her up when you go, get her straight to the Doc. We don' want anyone dyin' on us."

"Aww, c'mon..." Jayne started, but Mal silenced him with a look.

"Suki," he said sharply, reloading his pistol and not looking at her, "you and I are gonna have _words_ when this is over, _dong le ma?_"

"I..." she began, confused, but Wash leaned over and whispered a translation, so she nodded. "Right. I understand."

"After Jayne and Suki, Wash is goin' up," Mal went on, as though there had been no interruption, "and you're gonna go straight up to the bridge and make sure things are shiny. Then, Zoe, followed by you two," he waved a hand towards Zuko and Sokka. "I'll stay behind 'til all o' you are on, make sure no one follows us, then I'll be up."

"Sir?" Zoe said, "I'd rather stay behind with you."

"I ain't losin' you again," he replied shortly. "Best you get on up and help Wash."

Sokka raised a hand, and when Mal gave him a _you're kidding_ look, he decided to go ahead and ask, "Uh, just how are we doing this, anyhow?"

"The hard way," Mal answered, but then _Serenity_ was overhead and it was impossible to hear anything. The bottom opened, and Sokka looked up to see Simon, Toph, and Aang gathered around the now-gaping hole. Simon, looking distinctly ruffled, lowered a harness, and the bottom dropped out of Sokka's gut.

He was reasonably certain that he began cursing at this point, but _Serenity _was so loud in his ears he couldn't be sure. No one looked especially happy about this plan, but at least he could take refuge in the fact that Zuko's horrified face was at least twice as pale and terrified than his own. It was the little things, he figured, that mattered. Jayne shouted something that was lost in the rush, but his gestures toward Suki were clear enough, so he and Wash helped her to her feet.

There were times that Sokka didn't like Jayne, and the truth was, those were most times. But he doubted there was anyone else alive who could grasp a harness with one hand and a good 150 pounds of warrior woman in the other and be pulled up into the belly of a ship without his grip wavering on either. Sometimes, it _paid_ to be allied with a beast-man.

As Jayne and Suki were ascending, Mal started shooting something behind them, and Sokka turned sharply to see a small group of guards taking up defensive positions. He thought about it quickly - there was no way he could use his boomerang here to be of any good, and it was too dangerous to go in for close-combat fighting, not will all the bullets flying. And there were undoubtedly more guards following the ones they were fighting now, which would make getting out even worse.

What they needed was a way for them to all get up in the ship at once. Sokka cast about in the chaos, and landed on the blasted-away door, which had left lots of wide chunks of concrete, plenty big enough to hold all of them. Crude, certainly, but if done right, could be effective. He grabbed Wash by the shirt. "Rope!" he shouted, at the top of his voice, and Wash leaned forward, so he screamed louder, "_Rope!_" Wash shook his head, and Sokka almost screamed in frustration. Either Suki still had the rope they had used to get in here, or she'd left it at the wall, or she'd given it back to Jayne - whatever it was, _they_ didn't have any. Time to go even lower-tech. "Belt!" he shrieked, and Wash looked at him blankly for a moment, and then seemed to either catch on or realize that it was best not to ask, and started undoing his belt.

He kicked Zuko in the leg, unwittingly upsetting his firebending stance and causing him to fall flat on his face. Wincing at the violent glare from his best friend, he shouted the same one-word request. Zuko, however, had a louder voice than Wash. "What the hell do you need my belt for?" he screamed, and Sokka pointed to the largest piece of concrete, and then up to the open belly of the ship where Jayne and Suki were (maddeningly slowly) disappearing into. "You're insane!" he shrieked, but began undoing his belt anyway. When Sokka turned back to Wash, he was holding both his belt and Zoe's suspenders, along with Zoe's empty gun-belt, and was already fashioning them into a makeshift harness.

"Tell Mal!" Sokka cried to Zuko, who rolled his eyes and started shouting across the open hole. Mal stared at him blankly for a moment, and then to Wash and Sokka making rope with belts, and seemed to get the picture. Luckily for them, Mal was also wearing suspenders in addition to his gun-belt, and began undoing his to pass along. With all of the belts and suspenders tied or fixed together, they had a good enough length of rope.

This was a terrible idea. However, Sokka had learned that terrible ideas were often better than no ideas, and this was their only shot at getting up into the boat with at least some of their body parts intact. In _Serenity, _Toph was screaming something, but he couldn't hear her and, frankly, wasn't prepared to listen even if he could. Sure, this would be easy for _her_, but the rest of them didn't have the option of raising giant pillars of rock from the...

Sokka was suddenly overcome with the powerful desire to beat his head against a wall until he passed out.

"Get down here!" he yelled at her. "Get us out of this!"

Toph grinned.

* * *

"Anyone mind explainin' why we didn't do that first?" Mal asked darkly, as the bottom of _Serenity_ closed and they made a mad dash for _not on the planet anymore_. Toph wiggled her toes.

"You didn't ask."

Mal was not amused. "At least Sokka here was _tryin'_ to do something. Now, it wasn't a great idea, but he was doin' his damnedest. You coulda just jumped down and saved us _before_ I wasted all my ammo on idiot guards."

"I tried to tell you I could - "

"I don't wanna hear it," he cut her off. "I need a drink."

* * *

"Is she gonna be okay?" Aang asked. Sokka, looking exhausted, dirty, and sad, shrugged.

"He wouldn't tell me. Made me leave." They both crouched closer to the window, trying to get a better look. Suki looked oddly serene, laying still on the little infirmary bed, paler than usual, still bloody from the fight, hair fanned out beneath her like a halo. Simon's body was blocking her leg where he was working, but if Aang tilted his head in the right way, he could catch a glimpse of what he was doing. He had metal parts, similar to the ones he'd used to patch up Aang's own flirtation with bullets, and he appeared to be digging around in Suki's thigh. To Aang, it looked like he was making things worse, but then he would pull out a fragment of metal or - bone? - and it was clear that he was good at his job.

Aang just didn't like one of his friends _needing_ Simon to be good at his job. He didn't like the way Suki looked on the bed, like a corpse, and he especially didn't like the hollow, worried look on Sokka's face. The older man had kept up his strong, warrior facade throughout the whole ordeal of getting everyone onto _Serenity_, but he'd crumbled when he hit the Infirmary door and saw Suki laying there, forlorn and unconscious.

He wondered if Sokka was thinking of Yue, or of that awful moment on the Day of the Black Sun. Most likely.

"Don't worry," a voice behind them said, and Kaylee came over, kneeling down between them. "Simon knows what he's doin'. He fixed me up good when he was new here, and I was a lot worse off'n Suki is." She rubbed Sokka's shoulder kindly. "She'll be fine."

Sokka just swallowed hard and continued to watch.

* * *

Zoe, Mal, and Zuko were sitting at the table, sharing a few drinks. Wash was at the helm, Kaylee had gone to the engine room, Jayne was furtively teaching Toph gunplay, Sokka and Aang were waiting at the infirmary for Simon to finish patching up Suki, River was in Inara's shuttle. Katara, meanwhile, was hesitating.

She knew this had to be done, that this question had to be asked. She just didn't want to be the one to do it.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself and drown her fear, she walked in and sat down. What sparse conversation had been floating over the table stopped as all three turned to her. She drew on her courage, and said, "I want to know about the war."

Mal raised an eyebrow, but didn't respond. She turned to Zoe, hoping for better. "Why?" the woman asked.

"I need to. I don't know what happened then, I don't know who's right or wrong, or what to believe in. That encyclopedia gives me the Alliance's side, but I want to hear yours. No," she corrected, staring at her hands, "I _need_ to hear yours, why you fought for the Independents, why you..."

Zoe glanced at Mal, whose expression was dangerously neutral. The captain returned the glance, then drained his mug and walked out of the room. Katara slumped in her seat, defeated, until Zoe spoke. "Battle of Serenity Valley was the last major battle in the war," she said, apparently out of the blue, and Katara's head snapped up.

"You're going to tell me?"

Zoe nodded. "The captain don't like to talk about the war. For future reference," she added, raising an eyebrow, "don't bring it up if you don't have to."

"I'm so -"

"Like I said," Zoe interrupted, brushing off her apology, "the Battle of Serenity Valley was the last major one, and one of the bloodiest. Almost half a million people lay dead by the time it was all over, about two thirds Independents. It was bad," she added unnecessarily, taking a deep draught from her mug. "We had to scavenge for weapons and armor. Had to pile up our dead for cover. I even saw one guy use a leg as a club once, when things got _real_ desperate."

Katara, in spite of herself, flinched. Zuko, sitting next to her, squeezed her shoulder. "You fought under Mal?" he asked, and Zoe nodded.

"He was my sergeant. Commanded me and thirty other grunts... least, when we shipped out. Five days in, though, he commanded two thousand." Zoe took a deep breath. "He kept us going, through everything, even went so far as to do the worst jobs himself, so we wouldn't have to face it. He held us together when we should've fallen apart, kept us sane when we were goin' mad."

She paused here, for a long moment. "What happened?" Katara whispered, and Zoe looked up.

"What d'you think? They had numbers and technology, all we had was heart and ideals. We held on for two months," she said, and shook her head slowly, "but it wasn't enough. They called for peace, and then," she added, in a lower, darker tone, "ran off to Verbena to negotiate it, leaving us there to rot with the dead. _Both_ sides left us. Disease killed most who weren't dead already, infection the rest. You only survived Serenity Valley if you weren't cut up anywhere and had all your parts intact."

"Why did they leave you there?" she asked, horrified, and Zoe turned her hollow eyes onto her.

"'Cause we didn't matter," she replied bitterly. "We were just grunts, they were the generals, diplomats, leaders. It took 'em a week to come for us, and by then, only about a hundred and fifty of that two thousand were still alive, and of our original platoon? Just me."

Zuko looked as though he'd been punched in the gut; Katara _felt_ like it. But Zoe wasn't finished. "When I met him, the captain was an idealist. _Believed_ in what he fought for, in freedom, in... humanity. Cared, even, about makin' the world a better place. He was compassionate, likable, friendly." She shook her head and sighed. "But he left all that on the battlefield. Now, he's got the ship, and us on it. Nothing else. We... " she said slowly, "They won, and we paid the price." She fell silent for a moment, and then added, "We're not always right, and we sure as hell ain't always nice, but we are who we are because of the war. Everyone on this ship's lost something to the Alliance, to their _version_ of right and wrong, but then," she said, shrugging, "war's over. We got nothing to win by fighting."

"But you do it anyway," Zuko whispered.

"Yeah," a voice said from behind them, and it was Mal, standing at the doorway, eyes clouded. "We do it anyway. Someone's got to."

Katara stared at him, and felt something shift between the two of them, something fundamental and familiar - it was the same thing that had shifted when she'd looked at Zuko under Ba Sing Se. Understanding. She _understood_ Mal. "Why'd you name the ship after that battle?" she asked softly, though she thought she might already know.

He blinked, clutching his mug in his hand like it was a life-line. "'Cause once you've been at Serenity," he growled, "you never leave. You just learn to live there."


	10. 206: the rules make you a slave

take my love, take my land, take me where i cannot stand  
i don't care, i'm still free  
_you can't take the sky from me_

episode two:  
**sihnon shuffle**

chapter six:  
(_the rules make you a slave_)

"So, um," he started, rubbing the back of his head and wondering how to start this conversation. Finally, he settled on the simplest approach, which was not actually approaching the real question, "How's Suki?"

"Stable," Sokka replied, groaning and trying to relax on the little couch outside the infirmary. "She's still asleep, but Simon said she should wake up tonight or tomorrow."

Zuko sat down on the armrest uncomfortably, peering into the blue-lit room and watching Suki's pale, slumbering form. "Will her leg be okay? I mean," he amended, feeling stupid, "will she have a limp or anything?"

Sokka shrugged. "Don't know yet."

A long, deeply awkward silence followed, and Zuko shifted again, and sighed. "Talked to Mal and Zoe earlier - "

"I know," Sokka interrupted sharply, and Zuko turned. "Katara told me."

"She did?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Why is that weird? She's my sister, you know. We _do _talk."

"Uh, it's just," Zuko replied, wishing - not for the first time, undoubtedly not the last - that he could go back in time and punch himself in the face, "she seemed like she was having a bad day. I didn't know if she would, you know, talk about it." _Bad day_ was putting it lightly; after their discussion with the captain and Zoe, she'd risen, shaky and pale, and departed without a single word, in the direction of Inara's shuttle. He wanted to help her reconcile herself with this world and the people in it, but he had no idea how to start. She needed _something_, but he couldn't figure out what that was or how to give it to her.

Zuko had never had many friends, and he'd hadn't really learned what friendship _was_ until he'd started running with Aang and company, so he didn't exactly know what a person was supposed to do for their friends during a hard time like this. Ty Lee might have suggested giving Katara a nice, big _hug_, but that response seemed somewhat... lacking. Katara didn't need a hug, she needed... She needed...

He didn't know. And that was downright _infuriating._

"Yeah, she's had it kinda rough here," Sokka muttered. "We all have, but she's... She doesn't like feeling helpless, you know?" Sokka sighed and leaned back further, absently playing with a loose thread on the couch. "She likes to be in control, or at least have a hand in things, and here... Well, she can't do anything. Can't even bend, without a moon, and with all the water locked up in the pipes."

Zuko turned. "She can't bend here? I thought..."

"Well," Sokka replied, making a face, "she _can_, but only when we're near a moon or on a planet. And even then, she doesn't have any water to bend with, so she's stuck pulling it out of the air or the pipes, and I don't think she's willing to risk Mal's temper if she accidentally broke something, you know? It just makes her feel worse about everything, I think."

"I think I have an idea..." he said quietly, tapping his chin. Sokka turned to him.

"What?"

"Let's make her a waterskin."

Sokka blinked several times in quick succession, and opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again and thought about it for a moment. "You know," he mused, "that's not a bad idea..."

* * *

When she stepped out of Inara's shuttle, herbal tea in hand (she had been promised that this would help her sleep tonight), she ran straight into Aang and Toph, the former of which was perched on the railing, looking terribly worried.

"Um, hey," she said awkwardly, not meeting Aang's eyes. She doubted he would think very much of her method of saving River earlier.

"How are you?" he asked fervently, leaning forward.

"I'm fine," she replied shortly, and made to leave, but Toph stopped her, planting herself directly in Katara's way and holding out a hand.

"Not so fast, Kaytay," she said, and both Katara and Aang glanced at her quizzically. "I know you're not fine. You gotta talk to us."

She hesitated for a moment, trying to form the words to explain how she felt - both like a monster and a hero, confused by her place in this world and certain that she was doing the right things here, indescribably lonely and yet also like part of a tight-knit family - but nothing came. There weren't any words sufficient to explain it. She hadn't even been able to express herself to her _brother_, let alone her friends! Really, it seemed like the only person who understood was Inara, and Katara suspected that that was only because she'd been trained to understand.

"What do you want me to say?" she whispered, clutching the herbal tea. "I tortured two men to stop them from torturing a - a friend. I used bloodbending, even though I swore I wouldn't. And - And," she added, tilting her chin up and speaking with strength she didn't believe in, "I would do it again." Internally, she _dared_ Aang to challenge her, to give her a reason to scream and rant and _attack_. Instead, he just tilted his head.

"We still don't know what they want with River," he replied softly, and she was disappointed. "I mean, we know they wanted to take her to that Academy, but we don't know anything about it. They're still locked up in rock, right, Toph?"

Toph nodded. "Only their eyes and noses are free. I stuck 'em in the hallway outside our rooms, since there wasn't any free space to leave 'em in. Jayne said he might could get information out of them, but... Well."

"I don't really want to go with Jayne's version of getting information," Aang muttered. He looked at Katara, hesitated for a moment, and then plowed on. "Toph and I were talking, after, well, after moving the guys to the hallway, and, well..." He took a deep breath, and set his face firmly, "We're going to find the Academy, and free all the people that are trapped there. Whether Mal and... everyone else are with us, or not. I can't just... We can't just _leave_ those people there, can we?"

Katara thought about it for a moment. She understood why Aang wanted to do this, and she wanted to as well, but she didn't know if they could. They were only six people - fourteen, if the whole crew of _Serenity_ backed them as well, which they wouldn't - and after hearing Zoe talk about the war and that awful battle... What could six, or fourteen, people do against an Alliance spanning multiple worlds? Mal and Zoe had already tried, and they'd failed, bitterly.

What could they hope to change in this place?

On the other hand, she knew, it didn't really matter. She'd follow Aang until the very end, always. "I don't know if it's possible," she breathed, "but I'm with you, either way."

It was Toph who nodded. "We gotta start with getting info out of those creepy guys. Any ideas?"

* * *

"Hello," Inara said softly, and Suki turned groggily.

"Mornin'," she replied, shifting. "It is morning, right?"

"I'm afriad not," Inara said, smiling, and sat against the other infirmary bed. "It's about 0200. Are you in any pain?"

Suki shook her head and longed to get up and walk around. She _hated _being confined to bed more than just about anything in the world. "Jus' bored. An' sleepy."

Inara laughed lightly. "Rest while you can. I imagine Mal won't be very happy with you."

She groaned. "He said we're gonna have _words_ when I was all better. Wha's 'at mean?"

"It means he's going to chew you out," the older woman replied, taking Suki's hand. "Don't worry, though. He yells at everyone from time to time. You'll be all right, and I suspect he's more impressed by your actions than he would like to admit."

"Tha's good," Suki slurred, glaring confusedly at the needle in her arm and the bag it was hooked up to. "What is this?" she asked bluntly, trying to poke the bag, but finding her hand still caught in Inara's.

"It's blood," Inara replied, the hint of a laugh in her voice. "You lost a lot from that wound."

"Where'd they get it from?" She was vaguely aware that she sounded completely stupid, but her mind was running about as fast as a snail, so leaps of logic any more complicated than move-tongue-to-speak weren't happening at the moment.

Inara laughed outright then, and squeezed her hand. "Wash. Simon didn't know your blood type and didn't have the time to test. Wash is o-negative, though, so he knew it would be safe."

"Huh?"

"I'll explain it later, when you're more awake and the drugs have worn off. Don't worry about it now, just rest."

Suki nodded faintly and considered falling back asleep (it sounded like a fantastic idea, really) but couldn't stop focusing on Inara. "Why're you here?"

"Everyone else had things to do elsewhere," she replied, rubbing Suki's hand comfortingly. "And no one likes to wake up alone, so, well... I decided to sit with you."

"Where's Sokka?" She didn't want to admit how lonely it felt - or how grateful she was to Inara for being there - or how much she desperately wanted to hear her obnoxious boyfriend's voice right now. There was something about being stuck in an infirmary, with a needle stuck in her arm, drugged from here to the spirit world and back, that made her feel... _vulnerable_. Inara's presence was certainly welcome, but it wasn't what she really wanted.

"He was here for a long time," Inara replied warmly. "I made him go to sleep. You should do the same. You need the rest."

"Right," she answered, disappointed. Thankfully, the lonely, empty feeling faded as she fell back asleep, although she refused to let go of Inara's hand.

* * *

"She all right?"

Inara turned, even though she already knew who was at the doorway, and stood up to, in some small way, protect the younger girl from Mal's temper. "She's alive, if that's what you're asking."

Mal nodded, and stormed in, crossing his arms. "Good," he replied shortly, eyes locked on the place where Inara was clutching Suki's hand. Finally, he sighed, turning slightly away and examining the blood bag. "She wasn't right, going off on her own. Coulda been killed."

"Oh, stop," Inara said, annoyed. "She did exactly what _you_ would have done. That's what you're mad about. You don't like anyone who acts like you."

Mal huffed, probably imagining a thousand different replies to that, but instead settled on the easiest, "Doesn't change the fact that she coulda died. She made things worse for all of us. Shoulda said something."

"What would she have said?" she challenged, and wished momentarily that she could cross her arms. "She probably made it up as she went, just like _you _always do."

"Hmmph," Mal grumbled. "Didn't have to go _alone_."

"_You_ always do."

"Stop comparing her to me!"

"Why?" Now she did let go of Suki's hand, stalking over to Mal and glaring up at him. "Do you not like the comparison? Or do you just not like the fact that someone _else_ took the initiative and did what you wouldn't?" They stood there in silence for a long moment, and then she continued, quieter, "Ever since Miranda, you've been skirting confrontation. Why? What are you afraid of?"

She was asking, yes, but she was fairly sure she already knew. Wash had nearly died after their landing - he was only saved because he'd turned at the right moment - and Zoe had almost died, too, when facing the Reavers, and Simon, and Kaylee, and even River... Mal himself had taken a nasty beating, but then, Inara doubted his fear was for his own life. Mal's fear was always for his crew, his family. And to make matters worse, there were now these six new people, barely older than children, who had wormed their way onto the ship and were steadily making themselves comfortable. Mal didn't like caring about people, and now, so soon after watching Book die on Haven and nearly losing everyone else immediately after, he had found himself with six passengers who were hard not to care about.

No, Inara understood quite well what Mal was afraid of, what made him so angry with Suki. She just didn't think _Mal_ did - or if he did, he didn't _want_ to - and he needed to face it. Not that what Mal needed and what Mal did had ever been similar, but... she had something of a blind spot when it came to the captain.

"I ain't skirting confrontation," he growled, annoyed, so she responded with the same annoyance.

"Yes, you are! Tell me, Mal, where are we going, right now?"

He opened his mouth, and then closed it again, glaring. Inara knew - they were going as far out as they could, out to the Kaladasa system, escaping the Alliance's grasp. She didn't protest the logic behind it, because after their show on Sihnon they would need to lay low for a while, but Mal would never admit that there was another reason beneath that.

"You know well as I do that - "

"Yes, I do. But that's not why we're really going, is it? You're _afraid_, Mal," she insisted, stepping closer, almost close enough to touch him. "Afraid of losing us, and you're starting to be afraid of losing them, too," she said softer, indicating to Suki, and Mal looked away.

She hoped, for a brief moment, that he would finally, finally, _finally _relent, but she should have known better. "So what are _you_ doing in here?" he challenged bitterly. They stood in stony silence for one tense moment, and then he breezed past her and swept back out of the infirmary, leaving Inara alone with Suki, staring blankly into the spotless cabinets.

"Because I'm afraid, too," she whispered to no one.

* * *

"Okay," Sokka said loudly, bursting into Zuko's room without any concern for the fact that he had, until exactly three-point-four seconds ago, been in a sleep so deep that it could not possibly say good things about his health. "You would not _believe_ what I just had to go through to get this from Kaylee."

Zuko responded with something that might have been an insult, but even he wasn't sure.

Sokka blinked, and then apparently decided that he was actually welcome. "Right. I got us some leather, but I couldn't find any string, so we'll have to come up with our own way to tie it together. Do you know how to sew?" Zuko didn't reply, hoping against hope that Sokka would _get the hint._ Luck, however, was not on his side this morning. (Was it morning? He didn't know.) "C'mon, man, wake up! This was your idea."

"It can wait until later," he growled, and burrowed further into his pillow.

"No, it can't," Sokka insisted, and then hit him on the head with something that felt suspiciously like a rolled-up piece of leather. Zuko considered the merits and detriments of killing his best friend with his bare hands.

"Why not?"

"Because it's already four AM, and Katara will be up soon, and I don't want her to find out about this."

"You could hide it, you know," Zuko grumbled, refusing to get up.

"Yeah, or," Sokka replied, in a tone of great realization, "you could get off your lazy bum and help me."

"I'm not on my - "

"Lazy _stomach_, whatever. Get up. I have coffee, if that helps."

"Coffee?" Zuko asked, finally turning over and facing Sokka's obnoxiously cheerful face. "You actually got coffee?"

"Get up and you can have some."

Zuko debated for a moment over this. On the one hand, he hadn't actually had coffee before - Wash controlled the entire ship's reserves of the stuff and also guarded it like a particularly ornery dragon - so he was curious as to how it tasted, and how Sokka had managed to get his hands on some (and whether or not Wash _knew_ Sokka had some). On the other hand, he _really_ would rather sleep. He sat in silence for one moment, glaring at Sokka's knowing grin, and then cursed under his breath and got up.

"Fine, but only for the coffee. It had better be damn good, though."

"What about helping Katara out? You're not going to get up even for that?"

Zuko shot Sokka a glare that could set a man's head on fire. Unfortunately, Sokka, due to sheer exposure, was immune. "I don't get up for anything less than a worldwide emergency at _this_ time of morning."

"And, apparently, coffee."

"Shut up."

* * *

Zoe was sitting with him in the dining area when Sokka bounced in, followed by a grumbling, shuffling Zuko. "Not a morning person, eh, Zuko?" Wash asked, sipping his coffee. Even though he was so addicted to caffeine it was obscene - a holdover from flight school, when he had once gone an entire month on about five minutes of sleep a night, eight cups of coffee a shift, and a granola bar a day - he actually really didn't like the taste of coffee. Thus, the drink in his cup was a rich, creamy color.

It was pretty expensive, buying up enough cream (powdered and otherwise) to maintain his habit, but after one particularly harrowing episode on Greenleaf that had almost ended badly for the whole crew, several small towns, and at least one herd of cattle, Mal had taken to budgeting a small amount of each take for Wash's vices. ("Whatever it takes to keep our pilot runnin'," he'd said, "and whatever it takes to keep that from happenin' _ever again._" It had taken Jayne about six months to stop laughing about the whole thing.)

It was, thus, a mark of great acceptance that Zuko and Sokka were allowed to partake of Wash's coffee, but more than that, Wash's cream.

Zuko poured himself a heaping mug of coffee, took a taste of it, and then made a face. "How do you drink this?" he spluttered, and Wash rose to show him, Zoe snickering into her own cup.

"Allow me to show you, my young friend," he said dramatically, and began by pouring a liberal amount of Zuko's cup back into the pot. "You begin with sweetener. How sweet do you like your tea?"

Zuko stared at him blankly for a long second, before apparently deciding to just go with it. "Pretty sweet, I guess."

"How many scoops of sugar?"

"Uh, for a mug this size? Three, I guess?"

Wash nodded, and then opened the cabinet and pulled down the large jar of sugar, spooning three heaping teaspoons into the cup. "Now," he said, playing the Master of All Things Caffienated for all it was worth, "the best part. We have seven different flavors of cream that you can add to your drink, in addition to plain cream. What would you prefer?"

It was evidently too early in the morning for Zuko to make any decisions beyond which foot to place in front of the other, so he looked to Sokka desperately, who shrugged. "Just give him the same thing you gave me."

"Ah!" Wash replied, in his very best impression of a Chinese martial arts master. Behind him, Zoe snorted, and he failed to maintain his character. "Aw, you made me break," he pouted.

"I'm terribly sorry," she said, laughing into her coffee.

"Anyway," he continued abruptly, giving up the whole game, "that's vanilla. Pretty basic. Here," he said, cracking open the powdered cream (since the liquid was reserved only for his and Zoe's use, and maybe, if he was feeling really generous, Kaylee could have some too) and pouring a liberal amount into Zuko's coffee. He paused, looked at it for a moment, and then poured some more. "You stir it up, and, voila! Coffee that tastes as unlike coffee as you can possibly make it."

"Why drink it if it doesn't taste anything like coffee?" Zuko asked, but then took a sip and gave it an appreciative glance.

"Because there's nothing better for a quick caffeine fix."

"So," Zoe said, when Zuko and Sokka sat (collapsed) into their seats, "what are the two of you doing up so early?"

"Blame him," Zuko croaked, not even bothering to point to Sokka, who shrugged.

"It was his idea."

"My idea had nothing to do with four AM."

"Bah," Sokka insisted, waving a hand. "We're making Katara a waterskin, so she'll have some water on-hand whenever she needs it. Speaking of, do you have any string?"

"What kind of string?" Zoe asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The kind that will keep leather together." Sokka blinked, and looked at Zuko, grinning brilliantly. "Hey, that rhymed!"

Zuko stared at him, aghast. "Are you _high?_" he asked, and Wash choked on his coffee.

"He's hitting the sleep deprivation pretty hard," Wash explained. "We told him to go to sleep around 0100, but I don't think he actually did."

"I had a lot on my mind, okay!" Sokka cried, and then muttered something unintellible into his mug. Zoe rolled her eyes.

"I've got some twine in our bunk," she said. "I use it in case I get a tear in my vests. You're welcome to use some of it. Although... Do either o' you know how to sew with twine?"

Sokka waved a hand expansively, "We'll figure it out."

Zuko shook his head slowly, and then turned to Zoe. "That's a no. Can you teach us?"

"Why should I?" she challenged, crossing her arms. To anyone else, she would have appeared stone-cold and completely untouchable, but Wash knew better. He knew her well enough to see that she was just having fun, making the two boys sweat, less out of teaching them any kind of lesson and more out of a wicked sense of humor. He loved that about her. She could scare the testicles off of men twice her size, and would do it, sometimes just to prove that she could.

"Because you're a nice person?" Sokka offered, wincing, and glanced to Zuko for help. Unfortunately for him, Zuko merely shrugged and took a loud sip of his coffee.

"Am I?"

"Yes," Sokka replied immediately. "You're an incredibly nice, incredibly... badass, incredibly awesome... Or not? You're not a nice...? You're a mean woman, that's it. Right?"

"Well, make up your mind," she said coolly, raising that eyebrow again. Sokka looked to Wash for help, but he decided to take a leaf out of Zuko's book and sip at his coffee instead.

"Please help?" he asked meekly, and Zoe finally relented, letting out a little snicker.

"Yeah, I can help you. It ain't hard."

Sokka exhaled loudly and grinned. "Thank you! You really are an awesome woman, you know that?" He then glanced to Zuko, "And thanks for all _your_ help," he muttered, which Zuko completely ignored.

"Thank you, Zoe," he said calmly, brushing off his companion entirely.

"He always this... crazy?" Zoe asked. Zuko shrugged.

"Sometimes. Once, he climbed into a bison's mouth because he thought it had eaten a lemur."

"That," Sokka replied, annoyed, "was a perfectly legitimate conclusion."

Wash and Zoe both stared at the two of them following this, and then looked at each other, wondering if they _really_ wanted to know. Deciding that the answer to that question was a resounding _no_, they both focused instead on their coffee, and watched their two companions squabble over whether or not Sokka's previous actions had made sense at the time. It felt, strangely enough, _normal._ Like the two of them had become part of the crew, somehow. Wash bit back a snicker.

"Man," he muttered to Zoe, "cap'n's gonna be ticked."

She didn't have to ask why.

* * *

**A/N**: Apparently this got recced on TV Tropes, and between that and the reviewers asking me to continue - or at least post what I already have finished - this story, I've dusted off the document. I won't promise that it'll get finished, but I will at least get it up-to-date, so that everyone has all of the story that's currently written. I did really enjoy writing this, but between school and work, time isn't really on my side, especially not for full-length stories.


	11. 301: the losing side

take my love, take my land, take me where i cannot stand  
i don't care, i'm still free  
_you can't take the sky from me_

episode three:  
**into the black**

chapter one:  
(_the losing side_)

St. Albans was not, Mal conceded, the best of stopping points, partly because of their semi-nasty history with the place, but more because it was currently the - in River's words - "pinnacle of winter" and St. Albans took winter a good deal more serious than the rest of the 'Verse. Malcolm Reynolds and cold weather had never mixed especially well, but they were too short of fuel to make it out to the Kalidasa system without stopping somewhere, and of all the options available, St. Albans was the one least likely to stage an immediate riot for their blood the moment they set down.

Besides, it might be good to visit Tracey's grave. At the very least, it was a good excuse to get out of the ship for a while, since they'd be on it for the next three weeks or so with nothing but each other's company and a whole lot of black space to look at. He'd set that up on purpose, a necessary evil after their antics on Sihnon, even though they didn't exactly have a great track record with long trips in the black, and even though it was stupidly difficult to arrange, to the point that River had actually started hitting him and Wash whenever they would step in to try and work out the kinks in the navigation. She had managed to come up with a plan that would allow them to avoid refueling altogether - something about slingshots and Jovian bodies - but due to the distinct lack of Jovian bodies that weren't crawling with Alliance, he'd been forced to throw out that plan.

They were still about twelve hours out, though, and he'd taken the helm from Wash so that he'd have time to sleep, wake up, and drink a couple cups of coffee before having to land, when something crashed through the door behind him. He whirled around, gun out, ready to either put a bullet to their tresspasser (since, hey, that crazy bounty hunter had gotten in somehow) or at least scare the pants off whoever was clumsy enough to startle him. It turned out to be Aang, sprawled face-down on the floor, glaring violently at the lip of the doorframe.

"Since when are _you_ clumsy?" he asked bluntly, re-holstering his gun. Aang stood up, brushing his clothes off, and limped over to the other console. He looked haggard and tired, his clothes rough around the edges - might want to get some new ones on St. Albans - and he'd even, scarily enough, grown something of a _beard_. That surprised Mal; even with clear evidence staring him in the face, he refused to believe that the boy was old enough or possessed enough testosterone to grow facial hair.

"I was distracted," he muttered, rubbing his foot and continuing to glare at the door like it owed him money.

Mal nodded. "So what brings you up here?"

"Couldn't sleep," he replied, and made a face. "I thought I might talk to Wash. He's usually up here at weird hours."

"Yeah, that comes with the territory when you're a pilot," Mal said, leaning back in his chair. "I told him to get some rest. We're about twelve hours out from St. Albans, so he'll need to be rested up."

"What's at St. Albans?"

Mal shrugged. "Refueling, a couple o' old friends. We won't stay long. After that show on Sihnon, it's best we get out in the black and stay there a bit."

"Where are we heading after St. Albans?" he asked, apparently out of little more than boredom; he seemed distracted at best.

"Beaumonde, in the Kalidasa system." Aang glanced at him, and he raised an eyebrow. "Distinct lack o' lawmen in the Kalidasa system. Safe place to lay low, and we can pick up a job."

"Well, that's... good," Aang replied, and then looked away. "Have you decided what to do with those... _men_ yet?"

Mal valiantly suppressed the urge to sneer. The truth was: yes, yes, he had. It involved an open airlock and two less mouths to feed, but everyone on the ship except River, Jayne, and Zoe had objected to his _very_ simple plan, and since he was about to be stuck on this boat for upwards of three weeks without anyone or anything to distract the crew, he was deeply opposed to the idea of inciting mutiny among his men. Seeing as how mutiny - or even the risk of it - was the absolute last thing he needed right now, even below Reaver attacks and a brand new asshole, he'd been forced to come up with an alternative plan. "We'll leave 'em on St. Albans," he replied shortly. It was a good enough compromise, soothing the crew's guilty consciences without actually ensuring that their captives survived - since he had no plans whatsoever of dropping them off anywhere near that Fed station or, indeed, allowing Toph to remove the rock wrapped around them.

Aang nodded, and made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "I wish they'd _talk_," he groaned. "I'd _really_ like to know more about this Academy."

"Why? Planning a righteous coup?" he asked sardonically, and was surprised when he receieved a resounding _yes_. "What?"

Aang sat up in his chair, looking more alive than he had since falling flat on his face at the doorway. "I can't just let this happen. They're hurting people, like they hurt River, and I have to do something about it."

Mal had a sarcastic, vicious answer planned to this, but it got stuck halfway out his throat and refused to go any further. Aang's tone was the worst kind of familiar - he sounded just like Mal himself had, seven or eight years ago, fired up with the notion of independence and saving the worlds and _doing the right thing_. And if he knew anything about the Alliance, he knew that Aang was walking right toward his Serenity Valley.

_God? Who's colors he flying?_

"You won't make any headway," he growled, a deep desperation rising within him, to make the boy _see_ the horrible cost of the mistake he was making. But at the same time, he remembered how that felt, how exhilarating it was to have a cause to fight for and something to believe in. "They'll still be doin' it long after you're dead and gone."

"Maybe not," Aang replied, eyes blazing. "Maybe I can stop it."

"You'll fail," he said firmly. "Trust me, you can't win this fight." Part of him didn't want to stop Aang - part of him wanted to _join_ him. What the Alliance was doing at that Academy was _wrong_, no question, just as wrong as what they did on Miranda, or maybe even moreso. The people deserved to know the truth, deserved a chance to fight back, and he wanted to give that to them. But the last time he'd done that, he'd had to repair just about every scrap on his boat, gotten run through with a sword, and he'd damn near lost his entire crew. It couldn't possibly be worth it.

_We're fighting the just cause! Independent thought, independent dreams, independent lives! That's a thing worth dying for!_

"If there's any chance, any at all, I _have_ to try."

"Why?" he challenged, agitated. "You think your death is gonna change their minds? You think you can just wave your hands at 'em and make 'em see reason? You _can't._ You know why?" He didn't wait for Aang to answer. "'Cause they think they're right. They're all stuffed full o' self-righteousness and they ain't gonna stop 'cause some kid says they're wrong."

"How can they possibly think - ?" Aang now looked outraged. "They're torturing children!"

"They think they're makin' 'em better."

_As you can see, it isn't what we thought._

Aang paused, and looked to the floor for a long moment, before turning back to Mal. "Well, they're wrong. And I have to stop them."

"You can't," he replied, just as firmly, even though every part of Sargeant Malcolm Reynolds wanted to agree. _Captain_ Malcolm Reynolds couldn't go along with Aang's plan. He'd already lost too much. "What d'you think they'll do to you if _and when _you fail?"

"They'll kill me," Aang answered, and shrugged. "But that doesn't scare me. I've faced death before."

"There's worse things they can do than kill you, boy."

"Like what?" Aang challenged, tilting his head.

Mal hesitated. Maybe he should show him the Miranda broadwave, make him listen to the woman's screams as she was eaten alive by Reavers. Maybe he should take him by Haven, to the rows and rows of dead children, preachers, friends. Maybe he should lock him in a room with River during one of her nasty swings, or with Simon near to mad with frustration over how to help his sister. Maybe he should take him to Serenity Valley, where they said the breeze still stank of rot.

_Please, God, make me a stone._

He had a thousand answers to that question, each worse than the last, and none of them were memories that he wanted to dredge up, much less _show_ Aang.

"You don't want to know," he replied gruffly, and then turned to the console, tuning Aang out.

* * *

The fourth time Zuko went to Kaylee for leather, he had no choice but to explain why they needed it. Apparently, Sokka's explanation had involved an overdose of information about his and Suki's relationship (Kaylee mentioned something about a catsuit, and her dismay over the fact that this was a lie) so it was up to him to set her right.

Unfortunately, this only furthered Kaylee's belief that he wanted Katara.

He was reasonably certain that he would kill Sokka at some point within the next twenty-four hours.

"Here," he snapped, throwing the cloth at Sokka's face, "don't ruin this one."

"Hey," Sokka replied sharply, "this was _your_ idea. I'm _sorry_ if you didn't think it through."

"Maybe if you learned to sew..."

"Maybe if you _helped me_..."

They glared at each other in cold silence for a long moment. Zuko was, he had to admit, cornered. On the one hand, he was the Fire Lord, and Fire Lords did not _sew_. On the other hand, he wasn't exactly in a position of power here, and - more to the point - Sokka was almost certainly going to screw this up if left to do it on his own. He hadn't sewn since his stint as a tea-server in Ba Sing Se, however, and no part of that involved leather, but - and this was important - admitting that would mean telling _Sokka_ that he had, at some point prior to joining up with them, sewn. Of his own volition, no less.

What vestiges of his manly pride remained intact refused to allow that.

Unable to admit defeat but unwilling to get involved any further, he was forced to compromise. "Maybe we should get help."

Relief flooded over Sokka's face. "I am _so glad_ you were the one to suggest that. My hands are full of holes. D'you think Zoe will help us?"

"After you ruined that vest of hers?" he said, raising an eyebrow. Sokka winced. "No way. Maybe Wash will, though?"

Sokka snapped his fingers suddenly, leaping up. "I know! _Inara!_"

* * *

Katara was well aware that she was being annoying, melodramatic, and downright _whiny._ But she just couldn't help herself.

"I just... I thought I _got it_, you know?" she sighed, and flopped back on the chair. "Now, I don't understand _anything_."

"Uh-huh," Jayne replied absently, far more concerned with cleaning his guns than with listening to her bitch and moan. In retrospect, Katara figured, she could have chosen a better person to talk to - anyone, in fact, would have been better. Unfortunately, her brother and Zuko had disappeared somewhere into the bowels of the ship and couldn't be found, Suki was still on heavy painkillers and seemed to be convinced that Katara was her mother, Kaylee and Simon had vanished into Kaylee's bunk and likely wouldn't surface for some time, Wash and Zoe were locked in _their_ bunk, River was pointedly ignoring her, Toph was sound asleep, Aang was strangely morose and - horror of horrors - sitting in semi-amicable silence with Mal, and the door to Inara's shuttle was locked.

That left her with Jayne.

"You could try to be helpful," she said, with more than a little bitterness.

"I'm sittin' here, ain't I?" He picked up a terrifyingly large knife and spat on it, then swiped the cloth over it. Apparently, this was supposed to clean it, although Katara wondered at how clean Jayne's saliva could possibly be.

_...That_ was a train of thought she never wanted to board again.

"You're not even listening to me."

Jayne snorted, and then finally turned to her, gesturing with his knife, "You thought we were a bunch o' big, bad criminals, and now you find out that we ain't the worst thing in the 'Verse, and it's got you all tied up in knots, so now you're whinin' cause you don't like to be wrong. I get it?"

Katara opened her mouth, hoping for a snappy retort to take over her tongue, but nothing came. Jayne was right - and how horrifying was _that?_ - all of her confusion about this boiled down to simply, as he said, not liking to be wrong. But she couldn't admit that to Jayne, not ever. "No," she replied snottily, "you did not _get it..._"

Jayne snickered under his breath and turned back to his weapons. "I got it."

She resisted the urge to throw something at him, although it was less out of force of will and more out of the fact that he had a tableful of weapons in front of him, and the temperament to use them on her. "Fine, what about _you?_ What are you here for?"

"Money," he answered bluntly.

"Is that all? Don't you believe in something?"

"Sure I do," he said, picking up a rather large gun and inspecting it carefully. "I believe money is _good_."

She was beginning to wonder why she was even bothering. "There's more to life than money, you know. What the Alliance is doing to those kids is wrong, don't you agree?"

He shrugged. "Not my business."

"It's _everyone's _business. Someone has to stop them! Why not us?"

A muscle in his cheek twitched, and she thought for a moment that he might shoot her. Instead, he hunched over his weapons, cleaning with more force. "We tried that once," he replied darkly. "Ain't goin' down that road again."

"What?" she asked, coming up short. When had they tried to stop the Academy? Or was Jayne talking about the war? But that was wrong - Jayne wasn't in the war, was he? "When did you..." she trailed off when that muscle twitched again. Clearly, she was treading in dangerous waters. "I'm sorry. I didn't..."

"No," he said sharply, "you _didn't._"

She winced. Backtracking, she decided, would be good, if she could only come up with something to _say._ As it stood, all she could think of was "since when does _Jayne_ care about doing the right thing" and "I'm so sorry I'm so sorry please don't kill me we aren't close to a moon I can't defend myself" and she doubted that either of those would help her case much.

(Although, all things considered, falling to her knees and begging for Jayne to spare her would probably convince him to do so, if for no other reason than because it would boost his ego. Her pride would not stand for such rubbish, however.)

"Can I... ask what... happened?" she asked hesitantly, and recieved a violent glare for her trouble. She nodded. "Gotcha. I'm just gonna... leave now." She stood up and slunk out of the room, feeling like a puppy with its tail tucked between its legs, awkwardly wondering what to do with herself _now_.

Maybe she could find Sokka.

* * *

"How do you feel?"

Suki looked up. Mal was standing in the door to the infirmary, arms crossed. River, who had been sitting on the countertop that usually doubled as a second bed and chatting amicably with her, winced.

"As well as can be expected," she replied, with an apologetic shrug. "I'm not loopy anymore, so that's good, right?" She glanced to River, an unspoken plea for the other girl not to leave her alone with Mal. It wasn't that she was _afraid_ of the Captain, or even that she couldn't withstand whatever he had in store on her own. It was just that she didn't _want_ to. She knew that she deserved whatever was coming to her, and she completely understood why he had been so angry with her, but she'd much rather never have this conversation. Guilt and shame weighed heavy on her, two emotions she wasn't especially used to feeling.

Suki did _not_ like them, and she didn't want to go through this alone. River shot her a too-understanding smile and crossed her legs, staying right where she was.

Mal nodded. "You know what I'm here about."

"You're going to chew me out for going off on my own at the prison," she supplied. "For putting everyone at risk."

"No," he replied, and she started.

"What?"

He walked into the room, and leaned against the counter opposite River. "No," he repeated. "I ain't mad at you for going off on your own. You did good at the prison, anyone can see that."

"Then..." she began, confused, "why are you here?"

"Talked to your boyfriend," he said. "He tells me you're the leader o' some band o' warriors where you come from?"

She nodded. "Yes, the Kyoshi Warriors."

Mal blinked. "Right. Them. Now tell me," he asked, tilting his head, "what would _you_ do if one o' yours ran off on a dangerous mission all alone, and _didn't even tell you where he was going?_"

Suki shrank into the bed. "I would..." she started, looking anywhere but Mal's face, "I would be furious."

"Of course you would." He leaned on the edge of the bed and _glared_ at her, until she was forced to turn and face him. "Now, I get it," he said in a low voice, "I ain't your leader. You don't call me Captain. But you volunteer to come along with me on a mission _I _run, then you _will_ answer to me, _dong le ma?_ You will tell me what you're gettin' up to, and you will _never_ run off without permission, _especially_ on such a dangerous mission. You know why?"

This, she did know. She knew it intimately. "Because you're the leader," she whispered, "and that means you're responsible for your crew."

There was a long, tense silence where Mal stood very still and searched her face for something. Finally, he nodded. "That's right. And when you run off and get yourself into _nanchu_, I'm the one's gotta find you."

"I understand," she replied gravely.

"I believe you do," he said. "Now that's taken care of, I trust we ain't gonna have any more o' these problems."

"It won't happen again, sir," she answered, instinctively bowing slightly, as much as she could from the bed. It startled Mal, and it even startled her - why had she called him _sir?_

"Right," he muttered, a little off-guard, and then turned on his heel and left. Suki heaved a sigh of relief, and glanced to River.

"At least that's over," she breathed, but River was watching the door, a strange expression on her face.

"Doesn't want you to call him sir," she said, in the airy tone that Suki had come to associate with River's more odd moments. "Not one of his soldiers."

"I, ah," she started, and then winced. "It just kind of came out."


End file.
